Tag: nature

The Best 3 Things of the Gold Beach Vacay

We went west to the Pacific Ocean, enjoying its presence from the shores of a little town called Gold Beach in southern Oregon (population: 2241). Highway 101 runs through it from California, serving as the main way in and out. We stayed there three nights and four days, making and taking terrific memories. Here are my top three worthies from bottom to top.

3. Jet Mail Boat to Agness. First, the boat doesn’t have propellers, which allows it to travel in water as shallow as twelve inches. Using three 6.2 liter Chevy marine engines to steer and propel it along, the boat delivers the mail to Agness six days a week during the summer. Besides the boat ride and the history of the USPS run from Gold Beach to Agness up the Lower Rogue River, we saw a bear eating blackberries, a few river otters swimming around, deer, Roosevelt elk, beavers, osprey and their nests and young, and a couple bald eagle nests. We were also told about the stunning 1964 flood. We were about fifty feet below a bridge. That flood crested three feet above that bridge deck. Like, mind blowing. Besides it, we learned about the now departed Lowry fishing camp. Clark Gable used to fish there, among many celebrities and politicians, but Cable always asked for our boat pilot’s grandfather as his fishing guide. So we had water, boating, nature, and history, along with a dinner at a lodge.

2. Chapter One – yes, it’s a coffee shop. I enjoy coffee shops, even have a passion for them. First, I like a good brew. Second, I look for the ambiance. Third, I consider the food offerings. Like my other favorites — the lamented Li Di Da in Half Moon Bay and the long departed original Beanery of Ashland — Chapter One offers these things. They almost displaced The Green Salmon as the best coffee house. The Green Salmon’s fabulous gluten free baked goods keeps the competition level, but Chapter One’s maple scone was OMG excellent. What keeps the Green Salmon (Yachats, OR) at number one is their gluten free vegan breakfast sandwiches. Oh, yeah.

  1. The Pacific Ocean. We had a beautiful stretch of little used public which was a few miles long. It was so little used, it felt private. Wonderful to breathe fresh ocean air, gaze out over the sun splashed waves, and hear the crash and roar. Walking the beach was done several times a day. Great place for contemplating existence and discarding worries. I left a lot there in the beach’s sand.

Just want to note that the numbering is another WP thing. It insisted on indenting #1, at the bottom of the list, identifying it as ‘list’ and indenting it. Why? Only WordPress knows for sure.

Naturally, to make this a complete WP experience, it dropped again while I wrote this. Couldn’t save the draft, couldn’t publish. Had to work around by copying it and pasting it to a doc and then creating a new post.

2

Tuesday’s Wandering Thoughts

He encountered someone driving out of the in exit. Third day in a row this had happened. Not the same people or car, but…

They had to be given some latitude and space to let them finish driving out, annoying him, because it was his nature to get annoyed by others. He wondered how they’d managed to miss seeing the one way signs and arrows, along with the DO-NOT-ENTER sign. Surely, they hadn’t ‘missed’ them, but had decided to ignore them. Three drivers, three days in a row.

Such a small matter but it was the kind of thing that fed his growing disenchantment with society.

5

Wednesday’s Wandering Thought

A Tiger Swallowtail butterfly landed on a butterfly bush’s long purplish panicle as he approached the plant on his walk. Such a Zen moment, he felt forced to pause for consideration of the scene. Then the butterfly and he moved on, as though neither were ever there, leaving the bush standing alone and patient once again.

0

Cougar Update

One friend from the north end of town two miles away shared a video of a cougar dragging a deer across their yard. Another friend stopped by at the coffee house and showed a video of a cougar passing his front door with a raccoon in his mouth. The second friend lives a mile away in another direction.

Yeah, they’re out there. Meanwhile, someone else posted video of a bear cub running back and forth across the street not far from the downtown plaza. Nature always provides things to think about, if you pay attention. I told the cats, “Cougars are why I try to keep you guys inside.”

They looked at me like I was crazy.

0

Tuesday’s Wandering Thought

A bear was spotted crossing Siskiyou Boulevard at 12:45 PM. He then went up Park Street. Naturally, everyone wondered, why did the bear cross the road? Yes, sure, it was to get to the other side, but why?

0

Welcome

A carillon chimes the hour. The sun gives it a warm shoulder. She always works her own hours. Two deer digest, still except for ear flicks against flies and shifts to identify sounds. Blue-eyed and black faced, a long-haired blond feline assesses the day and listens to a woodpecker beat out a love sonnet on a wooden utility pole. Acorn treasure in mouth, a squirrel flicks a bushy gray tail and trots along a red-brick wall as two black and blue scrub jays hop across the green grass below him. A warm zephyr dries off forehead sweat and whispers close to ear, “Welcome to autumn.”

0

Wind Beats Tree

Tree beats car. Had some heavy winds Sunday night/Monday morning. Neighbors a hundred feet down the road experienced the results. No one hurt.

The wind’s snarling awoke me during the night. Then it seemed to quiet before developing into a weird, undulating whine just before daybreak. Listening to this, I thought, that sounds like someone using a power saw. Turned out, it was.

This was down at the bed and breakfast occupying the corner of Siskiyou and Clay Street. Both of the damaged cars park on Clay, across the street from each other. I live up Clay, for perspective.

Photos were taken in the late afternoon when I went walking. We first saw the damages that morning when we left to deliver for Food & Friends.

0

Ignorant

Unheeding of what they thought or humans tried to do, the skunk removed the board with her powerful front legs and went back under the house. A robin changed positions, looking for a meal.

Indifferent to changing clocks, pending elections, economies, and pandemics, nature shifted gears, changing colors and striking down leaves and blooms in the northern climes, and refreshening and enlivening the landscape south of the equator.

Oblivious to watching eyes, hopes and despairs, and lies and promises, the sun rose, and the stars shone, and the moon reflected on it all.

All of nature and physics remained ignorant of the human worries and events, as though they were a drop in the bucket, a blink of an eye, or a mote floating through the firmaments, and not the end and beginning of everything.

The wind, as he thought about it, sighed, and went on.

3

Capricious Fates

Yesterday was cooler outside — eight-eight F — a drop of ten degrees from the day before and night from the one before.

Summer had arrived. Temps are night were falling to sixty, fifty-nine, but it was often seventy by ten AM and quickly climbing.

We have a gas fireplace. Standing by it yesterday, I felt the heat from its pilot radiating out and thought, time to turn that puppy off. So I did.

Clearing their throat, Nature declared, “Hold my beer.”

It’s my custom to keep windows open at night. A wind was blowing through the night, bringing what felt like Arctic air. Getting up, I closed all the windows and thought about turning on the fireplace.

Made me smile. The capricious fates had fooled me again. It’s like, if you study something expensive to buy, and finally pull the trigger, it’s bound to be on sale immediately after you take position.

I guess Alanis Morissette expressed it better in “Ironic”.

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑