Somewhat heavy of heart, with the malfunctioning MacBook and perpetual precipitation, but cheered by the company of Claire,
Harriet, Tisha, Joyce, and Nathan --
the four former of us depart in the dark.
Mindful of a day when continual snowfall is a very real possibility,
we beeline toward the beaches, or at least coastwise: 8
to 12 then down 101 for the long pull to Novato, via never-completed cooling towers,
Aberdeen Bridge,
the
surprise
of
Wallapa
Bay (where a surprise law enforcer spares us from monetary setback),
short-cutting on a couple of side roads to the
Columbia
River
and
the
Astoria-
Megler
Bridge.
Now
the long shoreline of Oregon is before us... Arch Cape Tunnel,
Tillamook Bay and
Valley,
Lincoln City (with hail on the road),
Depoe Bay,
Whale Cove,
Newport,
Yaquina Bay Bridge,
Devil's
Churn
(the rain stops for about five minutes during a
10-minute break),
Heceta
Head
Light (!),
Florence
Dunes.
Night and Coos Bay and thoughts of stopping, but onward to Port Orford, and more thoughts. Beyond this -- increasingly torrential rain, high winds, distant lightening.
The deal-breaker is more hail, and we backtrack to the Battle (how appropriate!) Rock Motel in the Port, not without controversy.
Sentiments cooling in the chill, we decamp to Bonnie's for burgers, potatoes, wine, and crab cakes...
returning near the elemental turbulence around the motel's namesake semi-island, lost in darkness, foam, fog, gale, and loneliness. Within, the night is warm enough, but hailstones, howling, and infinitesmal chance of a tsunami lurk just on the other side of the wall. Undramatically in the midst of all of this, make an Apple Store appointment via the iPhone, which proves, as it did in the trip back East this past fall, a useful, if exhausting, fallback vis a vis email / internet.
