Southbound

Recounted 3 November, 2012

Petaluma, California

We left Eugene and headed for Florence on the coast.

Alan had insisted on showing me the house site on the river that was the inspiration for the Stamper family dwelling in Ken Kesey’s seminal novel, Sometimes a Great Notion. The house, which had spent decades cabled to the shore, had finally been claimed by the river, but we would have been able to see where it had been.  Unfortunately, after waking to rain Saturday, which precluded coastal initiatives, and Alan having commitments Sunday, Kaya and I travelled Sunday with directions, blessings, and warm memories.

As we entered the final leg of the first phase of the journey, Alan’s kindness brought me to consider other human warmth we had known enroute: Bernie’s dinner out and tour of the Cummins property, Michelle at KZMU tracking down song titles and discussing the legacy of Edward Abbey in Moab. We had enjoyed a gentle conversation with a couple traveling from British Columbia, in a VW van, traveling slowly across Idaho; our kind neighbors from Seattle, in the Winnebago along the Colorado Riverway….

Alan had managed to contact my cousin, James Grundman, of Corvallis, by phone, after the requisite confusion between email and voicemail addresses, and I burst into laughter as Alan asked Jimmy, “So what are you going to do with the cheese?” I spoke with Jimmy briefly, and was disappointed to learn he had guests from Texas and would be unable to meet us.

Alan had also insisted that we travel north to enjoy the Coastline of Southern Oregon before heading South into California.  Our Northern destination was a rock outcropping known as Devil’s Elbow, which we never knowingly attained, but turned around South of Yachats.

It is a belief of mine, while traveling, to not retrace routes already seen. However, on the Pacific Coast Scenic Byway, it’s the Byway or the highway, which runs 50 miles inland and is not the objective.  Southern Oregon transformed between driving North at noon and driving South at 2pm, as the rain lightened, sun shone on the sea and we began to have small adventures in the State parks and overlooks. It was not at all like retracing steps.

We also enjoyed our first beach on the ocean since leaving Virginia.  Kaya was filled with vigor, charging up the dunes only to dart for the water.  The rounded stones and massive driftwood trees arrayed in the lea of small coves made a perfect landscape for an afternoon’s respite from the road.

This was the early thinking.  Alan had also advised me against taking the PCH, saying it was too long and winding, so I knew we had a major leg of our journey in store, and was set on reaching California by Evening.

South of Woahink Lake, Dunes City, and Siltcoos Lake, the beach opened up into a broad swath, an excellent foreshadowing of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. We met some friendly German travelers, and more people from British Columbia on the wooden decks at the roadside overlooks, and took time to photograph a few panoramas. I was surprised to find that the National Recreation Area had maps in the turnoffs that Showed ATV trails through the dunes, some quite challenging.

The rain continued to wax and wane as we passed through Reedsport, an odd mixture of industry and harbor town, past the Umpqua Lighthouse towards North Bend.

Fascinated by the architecture of the bridges, Conde McCullough's concrete Art-Deco masterpieces, both in design and integration to their sites, I proceeded toward Coos Bay, and stopped to document the bridge at Gold Beach, over the North Fork of the Rogue River.  The rain increased in volume and velocity as I walked the narrow elevated sidewalk, and I felt fear in my heart as a tractor-trailer appeared to lean my way on the turn approaching the gateway stanchions.  I had an image of this clip of video being reviewed as my last, and settled for photographing the bronze plaque commemorating the completion of the bridge, in juxtaposition to the view between the towers.

I feel comfortable describing the detailing as Art Deco meets American Indian, with obvious Navajo inflections, which I also use to describe the design/brand on the elevator doors of Mario Botta’s Public Library off of Market Street in San Francisco.

The name Rogue caused a sensation of thirst, followed shortly by hunger, so we stopped at a grocery store for provisions, and began checking out the State Park Campgrounds, as plentiful as they are elaborate.  After some confusion at how all of the State Parks seemed to offer RV sites and no tent sites, we assuaged our fear of pitching the tent after dark and settled into an RV site, with water and electric, at the Capo Blanco State Park.

The great disparity between roadside Idaho, with its impeccably cleaned visitor’s centers, as opposed to their wide-spot-in-the-road chemical toilet counterparts in Utah, to this bounty of services in a Coastal rainforest was truly humbling.  A brilliant, iridescent Blue Jay, exotic to me, decided to hold court on the picnic table, bossing Kaya around, and demanding eggs benedict, don’t overcook the hollandaise.

Despite its brazenness, it was too wily for me to get much footage of, though its “song” certainly provides the soundtrack for some mossy videos. 

After a rousing breakfast of sausage and watermelon, having run out of eggs, we headed for California.