#60 - Coveys Great Adventure – Sep 2019 – Nehalem OR

September 2019 – Nehalem Oregon

Dogs joy!

I know I’ve said it before, but returning to Nehalem Bay State Park is sort of like coming home. This is our fifth stint in six years, so the places and the people are pretty familiar.

This is the first time that we have hosted in September. In years past we just worked in October. It turned out to be both pretty familiar and quite different at the same time.

The main difference is that the park operates with the full ranger staff in September, so the park office is open until 9 PM every night. That means that the rangers meet and process all of the incoming campers, eliminating most of the camper contact that we like so much. We were also assigned to a different section of the park, site D17, which is far removed from the action at the A2 site.

D17 is a tight fit for Ripley

Another significant difference was the work assignment. Since the host roles vary by the site they are given, our September duties were much different than we had in past years. The D17 hosts clean yurts and sections of the campground, period. Once that was done, the rest of the day was wide open. This is a much more traditional host assignment than we had been used to. It took us awhile to realize that campers wouldn’t be coming to our door all day, and that we weren’t expected to hang around after we finished the daily work assignment. That gave us lots of free time, something we aren’t used to.

We don’t host just to clean yurts and camp sites in exchange for a free site. 

The neighbors are still around

Free camping is nice, but we do this for the contact with people and the energy of running the campground. On a busy day it’s a little like working a trade show. Despite the shorter hours in D17, we are looking forward to moving to A2 at the end of the month and resuming our “usual” duties.

One nice surprise was that we got to see Milton and Lynnette Hansen before they pulled out at the end of the month. We missed them last year; we arrived the day they left. They were hosting at one of the day-use parks in Manhattan Beach, not in the campground itself, so we got together for dinner in Garibaldi one evening to catch up before they headed home. Unfortunately, Milton didn’t get to do much fishing this year, so we’ll have to make do with store-bought salmon this Fall.

Squirrel!

I swear the dogs can tell where we are going while we are still several miles from the park. Maybe they can smell the beach or recognize a few curves, but whatever it is by the time we actually pull into the park they are at full attention. Nehalem means two things to them: the beach and the wildlife. Off-leash on the beach must be a transcendental experience for them. Coming over the top of the dunes they plunge down the far side as fast as they can run and they don’t stop for several minutes. Their sheer joy in the release from control is a real treat for us, too.   

On the 30th we moved from D17 to our "regular" site in A2, stocked the fire wood shed and hung out our "host on duty" sign. Let the fun begin!
 

Books I enjoyed recently include Kindest Regards by Ted Kooser, and Canadian Living by Peter Gzowski.

Wines that we discovered this month include Eliseo Silva NV Syrah and Ryan Patrick Redhead Red, both from Washington.

More soon,

Bob

#59 – Coveys Great Adventure – August 2019 – Oregon and Washington

#59 – August 2019 – Oregon and Washington

As much as we liked hosting at Thompson’s Mills, we needed a break before our next assignment. Working four months in a row is….work. We made plans awhile ago to spend three weeks at the Evergreen Coho SKP Park in Chimacum, Washington, but we had get the air system worked on, again. Three companies had tried to fix the damage that the antelope caused in September, but none of them had succeeded. If anything, two of them made it worse. They were well intended, they just didn’t understand the complexity of the system and tried to treat it like a truck installation. The system’s manufacturer suggested we take it to Oregon Motor Coach Center in Coburg, a place we tried when we were chasing the slide leak a few years ago that Kayeanne ultimately fixed. $1,500 and five days later (waiting for parts over a weekend) that problem may finally be fixed.

Spending the weekend in Oregon Motor Coach Center’s parking lot didn’t have any appeal, but finding a camp site on short notice anywhere in Oregon during the summer is tough. All of the parks that take reservations are booked months in advance, and first-come-first-served sites are all taken by Thursday afternoon. I finally found a site at Archie Knowles Lane County Campground, about half way between Eugene and Florence. I figured there had to be a reason a site was available, but beggars, etc. The site was fine, the park was ok, but it is right next to a busy road, so traffic noise was a constant problem. I think we were the biggest coach they had ever seen there, but we made it in and out without incident after I trimmed some overhanging branches.

Chimacum, Washington is a pretty good haul from Coburg, so we decided to break it into two easy days. Woodland WA on the Columbia River was our destination the first night. Ripley desperately needed a bath, so we pulled into a truck wash just south of Portland and took our place in a long line of trucks and RVs waiting our turn. But, when I tried to start the engine to pull ahead nothing happened, it was completely dead. We’ve had no-start problems in the past. I tried all the usual remedies, checked all the likely components, but nothing seemed broken. Luckily we were in a big lot with plenty of room for others to get around us while we tried to figure it out. An hour or two later, one of the passing drivers suggested tapping on the starter with a hammer on the chance that the solenoid was stuck. WTH, I tried it and the engine started right up! Needless to say, we didn’t shut it off until we got into our campsite.

Barge traffic on the Columbia

We got the last river front site at Columbia Riverfront RV Park in Woodland. A little pricey, but the view of the river through the windshield was worth it. It reminded us of Intracoastal Park near Lake Charles, Louisiana where we watched the tugs and barges day and night right on our doorstep (see blog post #43). Our site was a long pull-through, so we didn’t even have to unhook the car! Happy hour came early that day.

Chimacum is a small town a few miles south of Port Townsend, which is one of our favorite places in the country. Evergreen Coho SKP Park is an Escapees 

co-op organized like our park in Benson. We have stayed there a couple of times and have been looking forward to returning. We were fortunate to get one of the few full hookup sites for three weeks.

Port Townsend is not only a great place to visit, it is also a ferry terminus to Whidbey Island. Anacortes on the north end of Whidbey Island is the main ferry terminal for the San Juan Islands, so it is fairly easy to take a ferry from Port Townsend to Coupeville, drive to Anacortes and get the ferry to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.

Yikes! She's 29!

Unfortunately, the car spaces to Friday Harbor are booked months in advance, making it impossible for both of us to visit our friends Roger and Michelle Shober. There are no reservations required for walk-on passengers, so the dogs and I dropped Kayeanne off at the ferry in Anacortes and were on our own for three days. The following week she spent three nights in Port Townsend visiting with her friends Katy and Midge from the beach house days. Then, we drove her to the airport in Seattle so she could go to Salt Lake City to visit with Liesa. The dogs and I were all glad when she finally came home for good. We were getting tired of our own company.

Great BBQ pork and beef tacos

PT is a good place to eat. We found good sushi, a very good Mexican food truck on Discovery Road near the junction of Sheridan Street that served outstanding pork adobada tacos, and a pub called Sirens on the waterfront that served outstanding food overlooking the harbor.

Three weeks passed quickly and it was time to head south. We wanted to see the west side of the Olympic Peninsula and we lucked into an opening for Labor Day weekend at American Sunset RV Park is Westport, WA. Our plan was to follow Rt 101 along the coast, expecting spectacular views. I should have zoomed in a little more, because 101 just parallels the coast, it never touches it. Instead of sweeping ocean vistas and windswept headlands we got a long green corridor through endless pine forests, sharing the road with dozens of logging trucks. Needless to say, we arrived at Westport a couple of hours earlier than we planned.

Looking down main street in Westport

Westport is an interesting combination of commercial fishing harbor, party fishing boat center and tourist destination. Mix in a few condos and the one main street filled with shops full of “stuff” and you get the idea. We are rarely disappointed with local museums, but this one was quite forgettable. We liked Westport for three nights, but aren't planning to return anytime soon.

Decent chowder and good fish 'n chips

Salmon fishing is a near-religious experience on the North Wet Coast. I forgot that the season kicked off on Labor Day this year, so the park was jammed with fisher folks and their boats in addition to their RVs, tents and families. Once again we were the biggest rig in the park. I am glad we arrived before the evening rush because as the park filled up, getting into most sites became a real test of pilotage and swing room. I’ll bet it took some folks 30 minutes of backing and filling to finally get settled in.

We pulled out of Westport on September first and headed south to Nehalem Bay State Park for our last camp hosting assignment of the season.

Books I enjoyed this month include John Sanford's Holy Ghost, and an old Tony Hillerman novel that I missed years ago, The First Eagle.

More soon,

Bob

#58 – Coveys Great Adventure - July, 2019 – Shedd, OR

We experimented with lighting

July, 2019 – Shedd, OR

Running the mill without Don and Penny turned out to be as much work as we feared. Bill, the other, single host worked hard to hold up his end and Tom put in extra hours, but we sure did miss the extra, experienced hands. Luckily the school group tours ended in June, and a new seasonal ranger was hired in mid-month, so the real strain only lasted a couple of weeks.

Yes, it really did rain hay

One breezy day I looked outside and it was raining hay. Literally, hay was falling everywhere. As far as you could see in any direction, including up, the sky was full of hay. It was a bit of a “Wizard-of-Oz” moment. It turns out that after the grass seed is harvested, the straw is left in the fields to dry before it is baled. In the right weather, dust devils will suck the straw thousands of feet up where it is dispersed over wide areas. It’s really weird to see.

Despite the increased workload, we found time to do more exploring. Kayeanne’s birthday warranted a fine dinner and Castor in Corvallis looked good on the web. We weren’t disappointed, especially with the farro succotash. I’m not usually a fan of exotic vegetarian dishes, but it was outstanding. The owner suggested a local Pinot Noir from Lumous and she wasn’t mistaken, it was delicious.

You can’t visit this area without going to some of the hundreds of vineyards that have helped establish the Northwest as one of the leading wine producing areas of the country, especially of Pinot Noir, and lately Pinot Gris, too. Channel surfing on PBS one night, we ran across a documentary about the history of wine making in Oregon, with the focus on Pinot and the almost fanatical drive for quality shared by the vineyards growing it. Interesting factoid: Oregon has the most stringent labeling standard in the country, maybe the world.

We don’t have the endurance for wine tasting we once had, but we found two local wineries that sounded worth visiting. Emerson Vineyards in Monmouth OR is small and gaining recognition. We both liked their Pinot Noir. The setting is also worth a visit. They offer a full calendar of events throughout the summer featuring local musicians that sounded like a great way to spend an evening.

Bluebird Hill 

We picked Bluebird Hill Cellars because we liked the area around Monroe and the pictures on their website looked lovely. We weren’t disappointed with the wine or the setting. Located on (ahem) Bluebird Hill, the very comfortable patio has expansive views down the valley that compliment the wines and the local cheese. We managed to drag out a tasting, a little cheese and a bottle of Pinot Gris for the better part of an afternoon. Founded in 2014, they are just beginning to compete and have already had some success. The 2016 Shiraz is pretty tasty, too.

NOT a pulp wood mill!

Monroe is also home to one of the most interesting places we have visited in quite awhile, the Hull-Oakes Lumber Company. For 4 months we’ve been demonstrating the technology and telling the story of commerce in Oregon during the 19^th and 20^th centuries, but Hull-Oakes is actually still doing it. The mill converted from steam to electric power in 2008, and they only did that because they couldn’t get parts for the steam engine! The steam plant is still there, ready to go if the electric grid dies.

Add caption

As the guide emphasized at least three times, Hull-Oakes is not a museum, it’s a family business in it’s fourth generation of management. It employs about 50 people and operates much like it did when it was founded in the 1930’s.

It is also Disneyland for machinery junkies like moi. These guys cut BIG trees into serious lumber. They can make beams up to 85’ long, and 3’ square, the longest and largest in Oregon. They were milling 24’ long

This is the sharpening shop. The saw blades are
30' long and changed every two hours. 

2’x2’ beams when we toured and that was impressive. 3’x3’ is almost incomprehensible; remember they start with a tree and cut away what isn’t a beam! Tours require reservations so call ahead if you’d like to visit.

Dinner time

Tending the ducks and chickens does have a downside; you bond with them. We had two flocks of ducks, four older ones that were raised in 2018, and another flock born this spring. The older ducks refused to spend the night in the pen with the youngsters because last winter a skunk managed to reach under the pen wall and take an egg. The ducks refused to stay in the pen from that point on. One morning only three of them came for breakfast, a few days later just one showed up. We found one of the carcasses on the shore of the millrace, but only found feathers of one of the others. The sole survivor finally joined the young ducks in the pen at night. I reinforced the pen and the chicken coop to eliminate any chance that varmints can get even a paw in.

One morning Schroeder hopped up to his usual perch on the dashboard and went nuts. The river was apparently no longer a barrier to the neighbor’s livestock. Two sheep took up residence at the mill and on the day we left, they were still mowing the grass. Since they also graze cattle, I’m sure it won’t be long before the cows come to visit, too.

We were sorry to leave the mill. We really enjoyed working here, and at Cape Blanco. Camp hosting is fun, too, but learning about new places and old times, and talking to people all day is much more interesting than cleaning yurts and fire pits. We will still camp host, in fact we are looking forward to doing just that during September and October back at Nehalem Bay State Park for the sixth time. Next year, though, we’ll focus on finding more docent work.

We are taking August off and visiting northwest Washington. More on that next time.

Bob

PS: A few more pictures of the mill:

The mill race gates control the water level

The last water powered machine.
The hand-wheel controls the water
feed into the turbine

Why visitors don't tour the 3rd floor.
Those holes are access hatches to
two-story bins

Turn head on the 4th floor can
send grain down chutes
to 7 locations

#57 – Coveys Great Adventure – June 2019 – Shedd OR

June 2019 – Shedd OR

We had done a lot of reading about Thompson’s Mills State Heritage Site since we were selected to be hosts at the park, but the pictures hadn’t prepared us for the shear size of the place when we rolled down the driveway the first time. The silos are as tall as Cape Blanco Lighthouse, and then there is that five story, 130,000 square foot mill behind them. We turned to each other and wondered what we had gotten ourselves into, especially when the chickens and ducks were pretty casual about getting out of the road.

Luckily the fowl weren’t the welcoming committee. We were expected, and one of the current volunteers directed us to a temporary site for the night until the outgoing hosts cleared one of the regular sites in the morning. After setting up, we went to the mill for a quick look around. It was as big inside as it looked from out, and packed with very old, dusty machines driven by a bewildering array of line shafts, pulleys and belts. I was right when I stumbled onto this on the ‘net; this is my kind of place!

Schroeder is going nuts

The three host campsites are brand new and all we had hoped for. New lawns separated the sites which are surrounded on three sides by large fields. After a few days, I used the large riding mower to cut a path around the perimeter of the fields for better dog walks, and Lucy and Schroeder clearly seemed to enjoy exploring it. It is far enough from the chickens and ducks that they can be off leash, a real treat for the dogs, for the fowl and for us.

The first morning it became apparent that hosting here was quite different than any other place we’ve been. Hosts are encouraged to “own” the place and to use considerable initiative maintaining the mill, making any needed repairs and suggesting improvements. I’ve done a little carpentry, electrical repair, plumbing, pump repair, rigging and other stuff I’ve forgotten. We have the run of a pretty good workshop for whatever we need to tackle.

Tom Parsons has been the ranger in charge for ten years and really knows the whole site, inside and out. Luckily, volunteers Don and Penny overlapped with us through June. They have spent six months a year here for five years and are intimately familiar with every facet of the mill structure and operation. Penny is the go-to person for the ducks and chickens. Yes, three days a week we are also farmers. More on that later.

Original posts and beams

Describing this place isn’t easy. On the one hand it is OSHA’s worst nightmare because almost everything will seriously hurt you if you aren’t careful. That’s why it’s so interesting, though, because everything is right there: belts fly, pulleys spin, machinery pounds away and you are in the middle of it all, watching the whole show. Some of the belts go up (and down) over five stories, from the water powered turbines in the cellar to the top of the main grain elevator.

Water powered, and it still runs

Don and I got to figure out how to replace a belt, including making a splice when one broke. We used a tool that was on display as an artifact that might be as old as the mill, and parts that the archivist had cataloged and put in storage. It took two attempts but it’s been running for a month now.

Visitors are free to wander the grounds and the first floor of the mill, but most join us for a tour which includes visiting the basement where we can open the flume gates to run one of the turbines that is still connected to machinery on the first, second and third floors. That’s a real kick for everyone, and it never gets old for us, either. We also have a section of the mill that was electrified in the 1940’s and set up as a very live demo. Four elevator banks fly by, a corn cracker starts hammering away, and a big seed separator comes to life. Everyone gets a real kick out of that, too.

It will take weeks to finish the logos

When we arrived, the silos were encased in scaffolding and surrounded by safety fences. The roof of the silos and much of the roof support structure was being replaced. That work wrapped up in late June and the scaffolding finally came down. The painting crew moved in and spent the next week water blasting every surface of the silo to prep for paint. That really made a mess! It did get a little old trying to give tours while all that was going on, but the visitors were all understanding. Finally, a muralist began to repaint the large, colorful logos that have graced the silos for over 100 years.

This mill is the last survivor among hundreds of small water powered mills that dotted western Oregon’s fertile valleys beginning in the mid-1800’s. Few decent roads, no navigable rivers and no railroads made it a real challenge for farmers to get their wheat turned into flour. Moving grain by horse and wagon averaged just 6 miles a day, so they were enthusiastic customers for the new mill to reduce their travel times.

Top of #1 turbine

But, you couldn’t just decide to put a mill anywhere. Water powered mills need two things besides customers and capital: an adequate flow of water and a minimum “head”, or drop, of 16 feet to pressurize it. Richard Finley found what he needed along the Calapooia River and built the mill here in 1858.

Main drive shaft from #1 turbine still operates

It was his third mill, and he poured everything he learned from the first two into this one. One decision, though, probably did more to insure the mill’s survival than any other. He bought the water rights to seven miles of the river upstream of the mill. Since Oregon was still a territory in 1858, those territorial water rights were never successfully challenged by farmers or by the State right up to the sale of the mill with the water rights to the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department in 2004. In 2011, the state demolished two dams that mill owners had built on the Calapooia, restoring the river’s natural flow to assist Coho and steel head salmon spawning.

Originally roughly 3,000 square feet and two stories high, the mill is now 130,000 square feet and five stories tall, excluding the silos. Most of that expansion took place under three generations of the Thompson family, from 1891 to 1976. Despite that growth, the original mill is still in place, buried within the present structure. The mill was expanded in every possible direction, and then the expansions were expanded! The original 12" x 12" hand-hewn posts and the beams that connect them are easily seen and still make up over 50% of the mill’s machinery space. 

Building a platform over the mill race, just
part of the job

We certainly enjoyed hosting at Cape Blanco Lighthouse, but our duties were constrained by it being an active aid to navigation and by the fact that it’s mission over time didn’t change: it’s a lighthouse, period. Now we had five stories and the basement jam packed with stuff to explore and to figure out. We are not restricted from any part of the mill. We are encouraged to  poke around every floor and locate and understand as many of the bins, elevators, augers, chutes, belts and pulleys as we can. When we aren’t giving tours we clean (it takes almost 5 hours to vacuum the main floor), knock down cobwebs, mow, trim flowers, repair whatever needs it, change the store displays, or whatever else crops up. We had three sets of hosts in June and all were busy, but Tom couldn’t find someone to replace Don and Penny, so July is going to be a challenge.

We really like this part of Oregon. The Willamette Valley is very different from the coast. Home to about 300 wineries, the valley is also the second largest grass seed growing region in the world (New Zealand is first, who’d of guessed?). When we arrived, the huge fields all had a slight yellowish fog of pollen hanging over them.  My allergies immediately kicked up to the point that I was afraid we would have to quit and leave – nothing I had on hand worked at all. On a whim, we stopped at a local pharmacy in Brownsville. The pharmacist asked me a couple of questions and handed me two OTC products that I’d never heard of and I was cured. That, and Randy’s Main Street Coffee where Randy makes everything himself made Brownsville one of our favorite places in the area. Don’t miss Randy’s and the town itself if you are anywhere nearby.

We also enjoyed exploring Corvallis and Albany, small cities just a few miles apart with pretty different personalities. Corvallis is a college town, home to Oregon State University. It’s a lovely town with great charm during the summer when school is out. The population increases close to 50% when OSU is in session, which I’m told by everyone I asked makes a big impact on congestion, parking and the general tempo of daily life. No one sounded like they were planning to move, though.

A college town wouldn’t be complete without Trader Joe’s and Corvallis didn’t disappoint. It was one of the first places we went, since we hadn’t been close to one for a few months. On the same trip we celebrated my birthday at Sada Sushi & Izakaya. I had been looking forward to sushi since we left California last fall. That’s way too long between fixes, and it was really good, too. We both ate way too much.

Albany is not an academic community, but that isn’t a criticism. It’s a younger city than Corvallis, which means the streets are wider, parking is easier and the shopping is more varied and accessible. The area’s Costco is in Albany, along with Home Depot, Lowe’s and the rest of the usual suspects. We are equal distant from Albany and Corvallis, and probably spent twice as much time in Albany because the access and the stores make shopping easier.

Albany doesn’t lack charm of it’s own, though. The old downtown district is small but worth visiting. It’s nice to spend a pleasant afternoon wandering the shops and restaurants, but the highlight is the carousel. The city has come together to restore an old carousel, and it really is impressive. Hundreds of people have donated over 160,000 hours so far to rebuild, restore and operate the carousel, including carving all new animals. Each animal is sponsored and there is a waiting list. Visiting it is worth a trip on it’s own.

A month into our stint here and I think we are now comfortable guiding visitors through the mill. Like she did at Cape Blanco, Kayeanne has spent many hours poring over the records that Doug Crispin, the first ranger in charge of the mill, and several others have created. She has also watched hours of interviews conducted by Doug with the last owner of the mill and with people who worked here over several decades. She now knows the history of the place in more detail than I do. I want to take one of her tours.

Books I read this month included

             Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon

             Leave Tomorrow by Dirk Weisiger

         

More soon,

Bob

#56 – Coveys Great Adventure – May 2019 – Port Orford OR

May 2019 – Port Orford OR

Spring finally arrived at Cape Blanco, it actually got to 60°! We have promised ourselves LL Bean or Carhartt jackets before we return to the Oregon coast in the spring.

This place may be cold and wet, but the vegetation certainly loves it. You can almost watch stuff grow. We had to get the rangers to bring over a chainsaw to remove limbs that we wouldn’t clear when we left, limbs we easily missed when we arrived.

The (relatively) warm weather certainly brought more visitors. Kayeanne became good at traffic management. As you can imagine, the narrow, winding stairs in the lighthouse quickly became congested, and the constricted spaces in the watch level and the lens room really limits how many people can be in the tower at once. In addition to telling the story of the light keepers duties in the work room, she now had to control the flow up the tower. I could only handle five at a time in the lens room, which limited visitors to just a few minutes to take in the view, ask questions and take a couple of pictures. Firm diplomacy was often required.

We had been waiting impatiently for May 1, opening day for the Port Orford Coast Guard Lifeboat Station Museum. While it doesn’t have the wow-factor of the lighthouse, we really enjoyed our visit. Opened in 1934, the station served the coast for over 30 years. Don't miss it if you visit this area. The Cape Blanco Heritage Society does a great job preserving the site and giving tours. The site is also a state park, and has hiking trails to the beach and several picnic facilities.

The Hughes House also opened the first of May. It was built in 1898 by Patrick Hughes to house his large family. The house was so well built by a local architect and builder that it remains solid over 120 years later. It even has running water, and possibly the first flush toilets in southern Oregon, because he sited the house downhill from a spring that still flows today. Hughes arrived in Port Orford from Ireland in 1860 and built one of the most successful dairy farms in the area. One of his sons, James, was an assistant keeper at the lighthouse for 37 years. Hughes also built a school and hired a teacher for his and the local children. His descendants donated 1600 acres of land to create Cape Blanco State Park.

Battle Rock

We celebrated our anniversary at the Redfish restaurant in Port Orford. We wanted a special evening and a memorable dinner to mark 34 years of marital bliss, and it didn’t disappoint. The food was outstanding and the setting is remarkable. The site overlooks the coast at Battle Rock and Port Orford Head State Park. The owners also own the adjacent art gallery and select pieces are on display in the restaurant, too.

Bandon is about 25 miles north of Port Orford. It is a much larger town with a fully established tourist industry. It isn’t too tacky, though, so we enjoyed visiting it a few times. Don’t miss Tony’s Crab Shack. The fish tacos are the best that we've eaten in a long time. They make their own taco sauce by cooking down the fish bones and adding secret spices. They don’t sell the sauce and they won’t discuss the recipe; I know, I asked.

For dessert, walk a couple of blocks to the Coastal Mist chocolate shop. Leave good sense and restraint at the door. They make everything on site and it’s all delicious. I like chocolate and have eaten a lot of it. This place comes close to the one we found in Quebec City, the best we’ve ever tasted.

The food at The Spoon in Langlois is great, too

Docent work clearly agrees with us. We enjoy camp hosting; we are looking forward to doing it at Nehalem Bay State Park in September for our sixth visit. But learning about new locations and events, and talking with people from all over the world is certainly more interesting than cleaning yurts and fire pits. We are looking forward to taking on more docent assignments in the near future.

We also made new friends. Ray and Leslie moved in next door on May 1 as they transitioned from camp hosts at the state park to lighthouse hosts. We managed to fit in a couple of camp fires between the wind and rain, and discovered that we had a lot to talk about. They are practicing Dudeists, the first religion I have ever heard of that makes any sense at all. I hope they make it to Benson this winter.

At the end of the month we woke up Ripley and headed off to Thompson’s Mills State Heritage Site near Corvallis to learn all we can about the flour mill business in the 19th century in Willamette Valley.

I read a couple of books this month that I really liked:

             Splitting an Order by Ted Kooser (poetry)

             Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

More soon,

Bob

#55 – Coveys Great Adventure – Apr 2019 – Port Orford OR

April 2019 – Port Orford Oregon  

       

We arrived at Cape Blanco State Park and pulled into one of the lovely sites reserved for the lighthouse hosts. We have been looking forward to being docents at Cape Blanco Lighthouse for several months. In early March we got several documents from Greg Ryder, the ranger coordinator for the lighthouse volunteers. Besides the housekeeping stuff pertaining to camp sites, mailing addresses, etc., he also included background documents on the lighthouse, the early lighthouse keepers, and scripts that we would use while giving tours. Frankly, it was both exciting and a little intimidating. We both felt like we were going back to school and were a little worried that we would be graded, too!

Looking North. A little breezy today.

All lighthouses are very interesting, but this one is pretty special. Cape Blanco is still a functioning aid to navigation and one of the few in the country that allow visitors onto the same level as the massive lens itself. At Umpqua Lighthouse in Winchester Bay, for example, visitors can only  look up into the lens from the floor below, which is interesting but hardly the same experience as standing right next to it. I haven’t had any visitor who was even slightly blasé about it, especially when they take in the spectacular 360° views of the coast from 250’ above sea level.

The light has been in continuous operation since it was built in 1870. It’s on the western-most promontory of the Oregon coast. Originally oil burning, it was electrified in 1936. The combination of its height and intensity make the beam visible for 26 miles on a clear night.

Dress for April on the Oregon coast

The Oregon coast in April has a well-earned reputation for lousy weather. It was raining when we arrived on March 31, and it didn’t stop until April 18. Lighthouse tours close down when the wind exceeds 50 mph as measured by the National Weather Service’s weather station next door. It closed down for three days in the first two weeks of the month. One day the gusts hit 85 mph. The average wind is about 25 mph, gusting to 45 mph. It never stops. Seriously, it never stops blowing. The porta potty is installed inside a shelter and it is strapped in place. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to live on the headland for decades like the keepers did. We are somewhat protected in the campground by a forest of large trees, but all the trees on the headland were cut down to reduce fog. There is no protection at all at the light station.

Telling the story in the Work Room

Four couples share the docent duties five days a week. Two couples are on duty at a time. Each person has a specific role in helping visitors and making their visit as enjoyable as possible. 

The Greeter welcomes each visitor, gives them a brief orientation and a couple of warnings about areas that they cannot visit. The Story Teller then introduces visitors to the life of a lighthouse keeper in the days before electricity, and even before roads on this coast. The second head keeper stationed here was James Langlois, who served as head keeper for 42 years, from 1876 to 1919, and raised five children at Cape Blanco. He holds the record for lighthouse service on the West coast, maybe the entire country. Cape Blanco also employed the first woman lighthouse keeper, Mabel Bretherton, in 1903.

64 steps up to the top

Two more volunteers staff the lighthouse proper. The first is stationed in the Work Room at the base of the tower. She/he explains that oil burning lamps were used from 1870 to 1936, and introduces the equipment and procedures used during that period to maintain the light. Several original items are on display, and there are a number of drawings and pictures that explain what was involved before electrification occurred in 1936. The Work Room volunteer also acts as traffic control to pace the number of people in the tower because the stairway to the top is narrow and space on the upper levels is pretty tight.

Steep and narrow, but worth it!

The volunteer at the top of the tower welcomes visitors arriving at the Watch Level, the floor below the lens room. They explain that after lighting the original oil lamp at sunset, two keepers spent every night on the Watch Level adjusting air flues to keep the light burning as brightly as possible. At dawn they extinguished the light and climbed inside the lens to clean out all the soot from the oil flame to be ready for the following evening.

The volunteer then escorts small groups up a steep, narrow ladder to the Light Level. The lens is quite impressive, standing almost seven feet tall, five feet wide and slowly, silently rotating within the glass walled room that stands about 250’ above the sea. That lens has been in continuous operation, 24 hours a day since 1936. 

As interested as people are in the lens, it is the view that really wows ‘em. It’s the embodiment of the term “sweeping vistas”. Green grass, blue ocean, white surf and blue/green forests stretch in all directions. It really is mesmerizing. When I don’t have visitors in the tower, I just watch the birds ride the winds off the cliffs and the waves crash onto the offshore rocks and the beach. Did I mention it is windy here? Even 250’ above sea level the windows get salt encrusted.

Both of us have gone a little nuts about lighthouses. There is a trove of information on the web about lighthouses, lens designs, light technology and about the keepers and their lives. It’s amazing how tough the people who built lighthouses had to be, given where many of them are located. The keepers’ lives were also not easy, often isolated by weather and distance, occasionally for weeks at a time.

Port Orford is easy to dismiss as a slow spot along Route 101 between Gold Beach and Bandon. At first glance, it doesn’t look very interesting, but it has turned out to be just the opposite. Yes, it has just one market, one gas station, one laundromat, one car wash, one hardware store and one pot shop. See the theme? But a closer look reveals that Ray’s Market (an Oregon family chain) carries six kinds of imported balsamic vinegar, six brands of sourdough bread, makes fresh corn chips every day and smokes excellent ribs and tri-tip every weekend. The laundromat is bright and clean, and the car wash is excellent.

Then you notice the small food co-op that carries a lot of good food, right next door to The South Coast Gourmet that sells some of the best cheeses we’ve tasted and serves terrific soups, quiches and sandwiches. Just down the street is the Golden Harvest Herban Farm and Bakery that serves really, really good food, all cooked on site by people you can actually talk to. Griff’s has good chowder and fish ‘n chips, TJ’s served Kayeanne the best burger she can remember for years, and we have a few more to try to be sure we hit them all.  We are reserving the Red Fish for our anniversary, so I’ll give you that review next month.

Schroeder on rabbit watch

Anyone thinking of visiting this area should consider Cape Blanco State Park. It is small, kind of off the beaten path and very charming. The sites vary in size, but all have significant separation and most have thick bushes that screen them from the neighbors. There are several hiking trails, and beach access is decent, although not to Nehalem standards. About the only drawback is the lack of a dump station, which limits the length of time most people stay. There are several commercial RV parks and a couple of county parks with campgrounds in the local area, too. I’ll cover Bandon in the next edition.

So, this isn’t about our travels, but I wanted to mention a few books I’ve read recently that I really enjoyed:

             A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

             Standing in the Rainbow by Fanny Flagg

             Local Wonders: A Season in the Bohemian Alps by Ted Kooser

More soon,

Bob