WagonMaster and Mistress of the New Oregon Trail

A grey day envelopes the offshore rocks . Towering waves are nearly indistinguishable from the foggy air. Water rises from the ocean and crashes in high spumes against the basalt crags below our beachfront cottage on the Oregon shore. It is a rainy morning, late September, in Seal Rock, the beach almost submerged in surf. We have walked the beach each day but now we watch the ocean from the picture windows, drinking strong Oregon coffee and virgin Oregon rain water and munching on bananas and nectarines. Maurice Ravel’s piano music glows through the CD player and the newspaper is read, now lying scattered across the wooden table where we eat our breakfast cereal. What better day could we have – nowhere to be, no one to see, no thing to do.



I hope everyone took the opportunity to watch the PBS American Masters documentary, No Direction Home, a Martin Scorsese film about Bob Dylan which was on TV this week. I realize that while on vacation we are not supposed to watch television; in fact, we are probably not supposed to watch TV at all, filled as it is with an obscene volume of insidious and mind-numbing commercials for every piece of crap imaginable. Have you noticed, I suppose not, since none of you ever watch TV or, if you do, will admit it, that the proportion of ads to content on commercial television has exceeded 50% so that, unless you don’t watch or you tape shows to watch later when you can fastforward through the ads, you are mushing your mind to an extent greater than if you consistently voted for George Bush or ate nothing but Trix for breakfast? I have noticed this but, of course, I AM RETIRED so what else do I have to do??? At any rate, the Dylan special, as I said, was on PBS, so non-stop, no ads, and it was outstanding! In the day, I was not a Dylan fan, until my high school girlfriend’s brother introduced me to the fascination of the nasal twang and piercing harmonica of the Dylan discography. Partly from a high cultural interest in the originality of the music and a low visceral desire to, well, you get the picture, I’m sure, I became a Johnny-come–lately fan. The film by Scorsese validated my interest, if not my desires. So, if you didn’t see it, check your listings to catch a rerun or find someone who taped the show. Your efforts won’t be unrequited.

We have spent the last five days on the central Oregon coast, headquartered in our beachfront house on a bluff overlooking the ocean. Each morning, I walk across the highway and down the street to a small, funky convenience store to purchase the Oregonian, the Portland paper, and a cup of coffee to tide me over until my coffee at the house is brewed. The proprietor, Marti, is a friendly woman who asks my name on the first day and calls me by name each day after that. She has a beautiful white Lab named Choc, short for Chocolate, who is very skittish at first but, as I persist in talking to her and hold out my hand, becomes more friendly and finally allows me to pat her head and scratch her behind the ears. So I look forward to this small journey to begin every day.



The coast south between Seal Rock and Florence, a distance of about 25 miles, is very beautiful, particularly the last 12 miles between Yachats and Florence. The highway in that stretch rises a hundred feet or so above the sea and is very wild and craggy. Just past Yachats lies Cape Perpetua, named by the famous Captain Cook who first sighted this promontory on St. Perpetua’s Day in 1778. Here we took a 4 mile hike to the top of the cape, arriving at a point 800 above the ocean with a panoramic view south down the coast. The fog rolled in and caressed the shore, sending foggy fingers inland along the streamcourse valleys. At our lofty vantage point, we were bathed in sun and we ate our picnic lunch of crackers, apples, and a bottle of Sokol Blosser Pinot Gris in warm comfort.

Beyond Florence lies the Oregon Dunes, a long stretch of sandy, duney terrain, with huge sand hills reaching to heights of 500 feet. We hiked here as well, walking for several miles barefoot through the sand. Warmed by the sun, the sand was soft and comfortable but the best sensation was treading on shadowed sand which felt like walking on cool whipped cream. Reaching the ocean, the shore stretched flat and featureless north and south, shrouded by wisps of blowing fog, the sea glinting in the afternoon sun.



So our visit has been so far relaxing and languorous, drinking Oregon wine and microbrews, eating Oregon fruit and clam chowder, and taking Oregon hikes. We haven’t always driven but sometimes simply sit and gaze from our oceanside cottage at the constantly moving sea. Yesterday, as we ate lunch, we spied whales spouting several hundred yards offshore and watched seals traveling upcoast through the surf. We have photographed small shorebirds playing in the waves, searching for the small sand animals which are their diet. They run, chirping like baby chicks, after the retreating waves to poke about in the sand with their toothpick beaks, only to scurry madcap as the next wave breaks on the beach. In one group of fifty of these birds, we saw at least half which were one-legged, a colony of handicapped that hopped rather than ran from the waves. I wondered what disaster caused this proliferation of deformed birds but, despite their condition, they seemed as chipper as their more robust brethren.

Today is Friday, September 30, and tomorrow we leave the coast and move inland to Eugene, where 37 years ago I arrived with my family on a University of Oregon college visit. At that time, Oregon seemed too far away and I ultimately eschewed Eugene for the closer and more amenable cultural scene of Boulder. It was five years later when Max and I moved through Eugene in search of a destiny that certainly eluded me, if not Max. We were in Eugene on a Thursday and by the following Wednesday, I was back in Ames, having abruptly aborted my Western Odyssey. I have seen Max only once since leaving him in Oregon, at Stan and Kate’s wedding. I realized the other day that until returning to Oregon on this trip, I had set foot in every other state in the Union more recently than I had been to Oregon. Now that distinction belongs to Ohio, where I last visited in January, 1979. Nancy has never been to Ohio or West Virginia – next trip?



But, for now, it’s lunchtime – cheese, fruit, and another bottle of Sokol Blosser. Here's to Oregon!

Wayne and Darlene