MONDAY,
SEPT 1:
Who gets
to wake up to BLUE sky on the Oregon coast??
We do!!
So after breakfast, we grabbed our books,
threw in some snacks, and headed back up to Heceta Head. We knew it should be low tide when we
arrived, which would give us a chance to explore some places we couldn’t
yesterday. No tide pools to speak of,
but we did explore several sea caves carved out amongst the rocks, a couple of
which looked like real grottos – moss hanging, etc.
We later asked a Ranger if sea lions visited those caves in the winter; she said it’s totally unpredictable . . . a couple of years ago, they had hundreds; last year, they had hardly any. The late morning light was of course different than yesterday’s late afternoon light, so Bill had fun taking more pictures of similar places as yesterday, to compare how they looked in the different light. Was an absolutely beautiful morning.
Heceta Head was given an extensive renovation
beginning in Feb 2012, which lasted until June 2013. One of the unintended consequences of
modernizing and automating the lighthouses with electricity in the 1930’s, and
therefore not manning them round the clock with lighthouse keepers and their
assistants, was that the routine maintenance of these structures ceased. The lights functioned fine, but the buildings
which housed them began deteriorating . . . water seeped in behind the brick, wood
floors started rotting, etc. The $1.2
million restoration here was exquisitely done.
The original interior brick was painstakingly and gorgeously restored, the
roof re-done, the exterior corbels re-built . . . a whole list of things. While we waited for our tour, we watched a
slide show which documented a lot of the restoration process. Those guys should be really proud of what
they left for future generations!
For the rest of the day, we just took out our
Jonathan chairs on the beach, read, dozed, and watched increasing activity of
the waves. By the time we left, the wind
had really picked up! To the point that,
at a nearby scenic pullout on the way home, Bill was going to set up his camera on the tripod in order to time a shot of both of us with the lighthouse in the background. But he was afraid that a big gust of wind would knock the tripod over! Just then, a very “energetic” (high? Or just eccentric?) older man drove up, walked right up to us, began a very animated conversation about being from the Midwest . . . when Bill asked if he’d take our picture, he deferred to a couple of young men who were with him. The 3 of them were hauling some sort of race car. Who knows their story?? But they were all very, very nice and open and friendly, and captured on “film” the two of us and the lighthouse of which we have very fond memories.
Just a little further down the road we stopped
to admire some of the famous dunes in this area.
Still windy when we got home. Wondering if it will be this way tomorrow when we leave here to complete our travels down the Oregon coast. We’ll drive as far down as we feel like, spend a night, and then head northeast on Wednesday. Will spend a few days near Grants Pass. We’ve booked a white water rafting trip there on Friday! Then on to Crater Lake, back up thru northern Oregon and into Washington and Mt. Rainier, and Seattle. Then a right turn towards the Northern Cascades and home! Beginning to think that we may not take time for Yellowstone on our way home . . . we’ll see.
Grilled a nice steak and baked a potato for dinner.
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