Chapter 58 - The Quest

When we first moved to Lincoln City (LCO) way back in 2015, we immediately set about discovering all the attractions the area had to offer. One of those being the nine Oregon Lighthouses.

Within a year we had seen 7 of the nine with the remaining two being the two southernmost lights, Coquille River and Cape Blanco. I even found a handout on the Oregon Lighthouses and was able to mark off the ones we had been to.

All the way down until the last two. And I put the list on the refrigerator...as a reminder and a challenge.

And there it stayed, every day, until March 16th, 2018, when I finally took the action to head south and get the last two lights.

The excuse for this trip, in addition to the Lights, was St. Patrick's Day. I've always felt cheated that on this fine and wonderful day I've never had an Irish Pub, even a pretend one like they have here in the States, to celebrate this Holiday.

In LCO there are no Irish Pubs. There's one in Newport but it's more a restaurant than a Pub. And the ersatz one they had in Depoe Bay closed a couple months ago. So I had been looking, several months ago, for a motel down south to stay at and found one in Bandon, Oregon. 

And the clincher, for me, was Foley's Irish Pub in Bandon. There it was, a place to stay while we explored the area AND an Irish Pub to celebrate St. Paddy's Day in. Hooah!! What more could I ask for!?!

And so, I was off to pick up Carol for our last Lighthouse Adventure. And I would be taking it in my brand-new KIA Optima Hybrid. A chance to gently break in the engine and see just what kind of gas mileage she gets.

But before we could begin, we had to fill up, the gas tank, of course and then our bellies. A quick stop at the Space Age Gas Station and then an equally quick stop at the local Burger King, where I got a quick pic of my new car, to get some body fuel.

What a great way to start a day...and a trip. I do love me some sausage biscuits and a nice, hot, steaming cup of joe.

And the company wasn't bad, either.

Soon enough we were zooming down the highway. And I use the term 'zooming' in its slowest sense. I just don't need to speed along much anymore. Oh, believe me, I am keenly aware that having patience is not my strong suit but I have also come to realize that I prefer to drive at a more moderate speed for several reasons.

One, I'm not as sure on the curves as I was once was (if I ever was). I am uncomfortable taking some of those curves on The 101 at the recommended speed limit and so I slow it down just enough so I feel good.

Plus, I figure I always leave a lot of flexible time in my driving schedule and can afford to not have to hurry along. I can mosey and see some of the world as it passes me by. And so I tend to be quite comfy poking along at a steady 55 with a slight slowdown on the curves.

Not everyone is happy with my style of driving and I am keenly aware of that. Hahaha, if I had a nickel for all the dirty looks I've gotten as cars have sped by me why, I'd have, oh, about $20 or so dollars. 

So I try to be aware. When I come to where there are two lanes, I always slow down almost 10 mph to allow the cars behind me to easily pass. Or, I'll always use the pull-outs if they're available. And if they're not available, I'll make it a point to find someplace I can pull off the road long enough to let the line behind me pass. 

I try to be reasonable. But, man, people are in such a freakin' rush these days.

But it was promising to be a nice day. A great day for a leisurely drive down the coast.

And into Newport and across their bridge.

Another thing that has occurred with my advancing age is a distinct and real discomfort crossing high spans over deep water. 

Gives me the creeps.

I keep both hands on the wheel and my eyes straight ahead and will myself quickly and safely across that death trap. It has worked, so far.

Knock wood.

And then the beautiful Oregon Coast down the Scenic Coastal Highway, aka The 101. Or, as Carol refers to it, the street she lives on.

Ah, one of those curves I mentioned earlier. Excuse me, I gotta tap the brake to disengage the Cruise Control (CC) and slow down a wee bit...just til I'm safely round the corner. Then I hit reset on the Ol' CC and I'm back at my Double Nickel.

And it was a great drive. Not much traffic to contend with...or to piss off.

Just a lot of beautiful scenery to take in.

Helluva lot better than the first 150 miles heading out of El Paso, Texas going in any direction. Especially heading east. Flat, brown, dull and boring.

Not The 101. Look at that!! 

And more often than not, there is the ocean to help divert you from boredom.

While the weather looked as if it wanted to start some trouble, it held back and played nice for the drive down.

Whoa!! Slow down, Speed Racer!!

I understand the frustration those behind me must feel but, well, tough toenails. Life isn't always fair...nor fast.

The tunnel just past the Cape Creek Bridge next to the Heceta Head Lighthouse. Again and again I am struck by the physical beauty of the Oregon Coast.

Ah, the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Another little phobia I've developed is driving through tunnels...especially those along the Ring of Fire aka the Earthquake Zone.

Fun Facts: This term, Ring of Fire, describes a horseshoe-shaped string of underwater volcanoes, ridges and trenches which occur in the Pacific Ocean Basin. 

The 'Ring' roughly follows the edges of the basin where continental plates push up against submerged seaplates. They gave it this name because of the large number of volcanoes in the ring - 425, or 75% of all volcanoes on THE EARTH. And the constant seismic activity they create.

Makes me a little hinky driving through tunnels. Too many Disaster Movies.

We pulled over on the scenic overlook for the Heceta Head Lighthouse. You get a great view of the Light and the remaining Lightkeepers Quarters across a small expanse of ocean.

But looking down we saw these Harbor Seals just bobbing along close to the shore. Not doing much, just rising and dropping with the waves and bobbing along.

Strange place to play with a high tide. There were a couple seals up on the rocks but they're hard to see and besides, there weren't that many.

No, most were in the water. Bobbing along.

There's the view and it's worth a stop every time you drive past it. 

So, I'm standing there, taking pictures and enjoying the vista. Carol has started up a conversation with a young woman named MacKenzie from Montana and I notice a movement overhead. I look up and, WTH!! It's an immature Bald Eagle. 

I think to myself, "Wow, an immature Bald Eagle!" and then, POW!! I remember I have a camera in my hand.

Duh!!

I managed to get this one shot. I mean, I'm staring away with my mouth open several seconds before I realize I have a camera in my hand, turned on, with the lens cap off.

If I may say again, Duh!!

MacKenzie and her fiancé, Dave, were on Spring Break. She's going to school in Idaho and is pre-med...and likes cookies. She and Carol wiped out several while they chatted.

Me? I took pictures of the Lighthouse and kept myself ready in case another eagle flew overhead.

And the seals kept up their bobbing. In place. Just bobbing.

Then Dave, who is, by the way, a professional photographer, climbed over the fence to get a better angle shot of the lighthouse.

Poor Carol. She's read so many stories of people falling off cliffs and being hurt she had to say something but Dave was pretty careful. 

Me? I figured he didn't want to hear from me and wouldn't truly appreciate any of my advice or warnings. He was, however, unfailingly polite with Carol's admonishments.

They were a nice young couple. Their goal was to make it to Portland that afternoon...but they were thinking that might not be feasible. It was her first experience seeing the ocean having grown up in Montana.

You can check out Dave's website if you're interested. 

It's at ... http://www.wildernessintent.com  

And he's on FB at ... https://www.facebook.com/gnarangutang/

Then Carol spotted this guy. He was, really, just a white speck in a field of green but when Carol pointed it out I was able to really push the zoom and get this picture.

Haha, not even two hours into the trip and we had two bald eagles already!!

And our third lighthouse.

We throughly enjoyed meeting Dave and his fiancé but it was time to push on to more adventures and push we did...at a leisurely pace.

Pulling into Bandon from the north heading south you first meet some strip malls but then, after a huge curve in The 101, Carol's street, you approach the Old Historic (and trendy and touristy and totally filled with tchotchkes) Downtown which is, conveniently, situated right on the Coquille River.

And, although we were unawares at the time, within view of the Coquille River Lighthouse.

No, we were taken with the gaily decorated and novel downtown. Oh, and we were headed to Foley's Irish Pub to stretch our legs and then have us some refreshments.

Here's a typical scene of the downtown, a tchotchke store on the left that pretends it's a fishing supply store for 'real' commercial fishermen and a small riverside Crab Shack restaurant next to it.

But we were headed to the Pub.

It's a new car and so I park it a bit further out from all the other cars. Hahaha, I've seen the way folks open car doors...and I've already learned how easily any kind of nick, chip or ding shows up on an all black car.

So I park way out there and hoof it in. Good for my health and for my heart...in that I get to walk and I don't get all ticked off when I see door dings, etc.

A long view of the street that parallels the river. And a nice day, too. 

Aha!! We made it to Foley's. 

OK, I admit it. I tend to build things up in my head before I get there and then am sometimes, just a bit, disappointed by the reality of whatever it is or was when I finally get there.

Foley's is a nicely done tourist bar. The theme is Irish Pub but the purpose is Tourist Trap.

They do it right, though. Some very nice touches. And I admit, initially, I was taken with the decor. 

And a tall, cold glass of Harp.

Fun Facts: Harp, an Irish Lager developed in 1960, Smithwick's, an Irish Red Ale first brewed in 1710 and Guinness, an Irish Dry Stout created in 1759, or all owned by the same company.

When I had the opportunity to visit the Auld Sod, the only three brews I noticed in the few Pubs I stopped in were Harp, Smithwick's and Guinness. Maybe I was only seeing what I was looking for but that struck me. 

In fact, when I was there, I was able to tour the brewery in Dublin and even 'learned' the correct way to draw a Guinness.

But my favorite was Smithwick's. And then, when I got back to the States, it was Harp. Go figure.

But here, in Foley's, I started with a Harp. I tend toward lagers.

They've done a great job of decorating. It's colorful, festive and fun.

Ahhhhh, Harp.

And they were ready for St. Patrick's Day.

And my favorite Ale. Which I intended to have the next day when we came to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

The special that day was Artichoke Hearts. Carol thought I might like it and, yeah, once you get past the idea it's an artichoke, it's not bad. And we had some.

Me, getting artsy with some of the window knickknacks. Hey!! I'm still looking even when I'm enjoying.

The only drawback, the real, for me, turn-off, was the curt, cursory and cool service. Sorry, folks, but when I drop nearly $30 for two drinks (a root beer and a beer) and a plate of Artichoke Hearts, I expect to feel like I'm appreciated. Unfortunately, neither of us felt too welcome.

And I don't know why because we're both happy and courteous people. 

Harrumph!!

But we were back on the street soon enough and I was snapping pictures. Does this look familiar? It was just such a pleasant day I had to capture some of it.

We walked a bit through the small downtown and then headed to our hotel, Windemere On the Beach. A nice looking, older, accommodation just south of Bandon.

And it was on the beach.

And the rooms were pleasant enough.



With a good view of the ocean.



This part of the Oregon Coast is particularly rocky. I'm not a geologist and so I won't even attempt to understand let alone explain all the different rock formations we saw. 

Suffice it to say they were numerous, unique and visually stimulating. AKA beautiful.

As soon as we unloaded, we headed down to the beach for a walk. 

And passed a LOT of this.

Fun Facts: The town of Bandon was founded by an Irishman, Lord George Bennett. It was from Ireland that the name for the town came plus he brought an ornamental shrub that reminded him of his native Ireland.

The shrub is called gorse. Driving on the southern Oregon Coast you can't help but see it, especially around Bandon. Gorse quickly displaced the native salad plants. It grows in a chest-high, gray-green mass speckled with little yellow flowers like those of Scotch Broom. It's leaves are protected by a tangle of prickles like those on a thistle.

Despite its pervasive nature, however, gorse is more feared for its love of fire. Like a phoenix, gorse was born to burn. Gorse secretes oils in its leaves that burn like diesel fuel. In hot weather, the oil actually drips off its leaves.

When a fire sweeps the country clean, gorse is the first green thing to return. Its charred-off roots start sprouting new growth as soon as things are cool again and its seed pods, cracked open by the fire, soon start sprouting.

In the 63 years since Bennett had founded the city...and brought gorse to his new town, the stuff had spread everywhere.

Then, on September 26, 1936, they were doing slash burns in a nearby logging operation and the fire got out of control. Normally the fires would have been easily contained with little damage done but once the fire got into the gorse thickets all hell broke loose.

A stray spark would fall in a clump of gorse near a house and an instant later the gorse was flaming higher than the house. In another instant the house would be on fire. And it kept spreading.

Squirting water on the gorse was like throwing water on a grease fire...all it did was spread the flaming, oily globs everywhere.

The townspeople fled towards the river where the Coast Guard ferried hundreds of them across the Coquille River. The Fire Department helped but they had to stop when the tires on the fire truck melted. They too fled to the beach where, along with the remaining townspeople, they knelt behind driftwood logs charred and smoking from the heat. They kept throwing sand on the logs to keep them from catching fire.

In the end, 10 people died, most of those died trying to retrieve treasured objects from their homes. Out of some 500 buildings and homes in Bandon, just 16 remained in salvageable condition.

And it was gorse we walked through on our way down to the beach. It is everywhere around in this area.

And this one was celebrating just being out and about. In the gorse.

But there were some things that resist the gorse.

Hahaha, some things never change. They're eternal.

Like the need to take a long picture up, and down, a beach. 

And this fellow, lying to the south of us. Carol thought it was a sleeping giant. I thought of a toppled Kon-Tiki statue.

And the drama. As we walked to the beach a woman, nearly in tears was coming back. She stopped to tell us there was a man on the beach abusing a dog. The dogs cries were too horrible for her to take and she was going back to seek someone to help stop the abuse.

I was expecting to see something terrible and was wondering how I should react. I was ready to do something. We got to the beach and we looked around for the monster who was mistreating his dog.

And we saw this guy, a couple hundred yards down the beach. He was holding his pup down, a German Shepard pup, with one hand and petting it with the other.

I watched for a while and determined he was just trying, to me, to calm his over-excited pup. Teaching him that he couldn't just go Bat-Ass Crazy just because he was on the beach.

I didn't hear any piteous moans or wails from the pup. Just a lot of tail wagging and a struggle to get up and dash here and there on the beach.

A nothing burger. 

But the Snowflake got the manager of the hotel to walk all the way down the beach and then over to this couple. They talked for a couple minutes and then the manager turned around and headed back. After about five minutes more these folks, once they had their dog calmed down, got up and left the beach.

People enjoying the beach.

And me, taking pictures of people enjoying the beach.

And the nice day it was turning out to be.

Carol was off on her own adventure...looking for agate and other treasures.

It was a really pleasant day. And the big thing I noted was that the wind was mild here on this beach. Not like LCO where the wind whips you. It's not the Kite-Flying Capital of the World for no reason.

No, here the beach experience was more pleasant because of the lack of the punishing wind.

After our jaunt on the beach and getting things situated in the hotel there were still several hours of daylight left. What the heck? Might as well use it so Carol and I headed off to take a gander at the Coquille River Lighthouse (CRL).

And there it is. The last lighthouse constructed in Oregon.

And, when the light is right and the photographer more competent than I am, it's quite photogenic.

While we were there admiring the CRL, we spotted this guy cavorting in the river. I chose that word, 'cavorting', carefully because he was, actually, splashing around and darting here and there and generally having himself a grand ol' time out there in the river.

Tough to follow and capture with a camera.

On the west side of the CRL, there is an artificial jetty jutting out into the ocean and creating a gentler semi-harbor for those entering or leaving the ocean via the river.

So, naturally, Carol took off down the jetty.

She's got 'Go Power', there she goes!!

I tagged along, reluctantly. Hahaha, I am, if nothing else, an exceedingly lazy person and a walk out on the jetty always, always involves a walk back.

See my logic?

But I could get some pictures of the CRL from a different, sort of, angle and so I wandered slowly after Carol.

You gotta marvel at the power of the ocean that it can take these huge logs adrift in the ocean and put them up on top of the jetty.

As I moseyed up the jetty, I saw, on the south side of the river, the source of the foghorn I'd been hearing since I arrived. Set there on the opposite jetty it was blaring every 20-30 seconds or so.

Although it was a bit overcast, there was still enough sunlight to make it a pleasant day.

A day made for adventure.

Looking north up the beach.

Gotta watch your step as there was driftwood everywhere.

Me, getting artsy-fartsy and trying for an unusual angle to capture the CRL with.

Plus you get an idea of all the driftwood that piles up there. Those are some pretty damn big pieces of driftwood.

I don't know if it was deliberate or an act of nature but the end of the jetty juts upward at its end and serves as a breakwater for the waves coming in. It also gives the gulls a dry area to congregate in far away from the wandering folks, like me and Carol.

I think the tide was coming in. Regardless, it was hitting the end of the jetty, hard.

Looking east from the jetty towards the CRL. Then, by golly, I was struck with a sudden insight!!

Duh!!

That was the city of Bandon there, across the river from the CRL. Hahaha, if I'd only looked earlier while we were strolling through the Old Town, I'd have seen the CRL.

May I say, again, "Duh!"

It is a long-running joke, my paltry attempts to get a decent picture of a gull, which goes back many, many, many years.

So you'll excuse me I hope for these few. I have plenty more, believe me, but I spared you, gentle reader, from all but these two.

Because, doggone it, I'm getting there. I'm getting close to getting a semi-decent picture of a doggone gull. Close...

...but no cigar. Yet.

And still I try. Hahaha, still I try.

Moving back, I was still reaching for a good picture of the CRL.

And I thought this one was semi-decent.

Or, even, this one. Trying to frame the CRL with the beach grass.

As we were heading back, I spotted these two mating ducks in the river. Neither Carol nor I could get a good view of them as they were a ways off. But I reached out with my lens and was able to get these.

Actually, I got about 20+ of them but these were the most presentable.

Meet Mrs. Scoter Duck and...

...her Mister.

Pretty wild, eh!?! This is not a duck you normally see swimming around.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I'm still working on my self-editing. But this is context, right!?! Helps you to understand the relationship twixt light tower and the quarters/office below.

That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

I had scampered, like a mountain goat, down the rocks on the river side of the light and got this shot of the channel created by the jetties. 

There's the foghorn, off in the distance on the left.

Carol suggested we count the rings to get an idea of the age of this piece of driftwood. I suggested we go get a beer and each of us could take a guess.

The ferocity and power to push all of that debris up onto the beach.

Wow!!

And then it was back to the hotel to say good-night to that particular day. And it had been a good day. Eagles, egrets, Scoter ducks, song sparrows, Bewick Wrens, hawks and new friends.

A good end to a good day.

The Adventure will continue after this short intermission.

And so ended the first day. I had the CRL now and there was only one more lighthouse left. 

But the next day was St. Patrick's Day and I'd reserved it for celebrating. 

Life is good. The Quest continues!!