Bandon - Day Six & Seven

Bandon, Oregon
October 27-28, 2017
Bullards Beach State Park

It was chilly when we woke-up! 44 degrees outside and only 52 inside of the trailer. Brrr! We do have a heater, but we don't like to run it all night since it's a little noisy. 

We enjoyed another lazy morning, which typically involves coffee, showers and breakfast at a very slow pace. It usually means we're ready to greet the day with whatever outings we have planned by 10:00 a.m. Such a difference from the days of waking up at 5:00 and rushing out the door by 7:00!

After breakfast, I left Rod to work on an editing job and went into town to explore the shops. It was so nice to wander around for a couple of hours, going at my own pace, finding some gifts and greeting cards. I discovered a couple of restaurants that I'd like to try next time we're in town. The first is a new brew pub called Bandon Brewing Company and Pizzeria. It has both indoor and outdoor seating and the menu looks great. There's also a place called Bread & Wine that has a nice little patio/garden that might be fun to try. 

I stopped in a cute bakery and wound up returning at the end of my shopping trip so I could buy a bag of freshly ground coffee to take back to the trailer. I had a sample cup of the blend and it was amazing! I wound up buying two bags, as well as an herb biscuit and a couple of cookies for our dessert. The shop is called The Rolling Pin Bake & Brew and the woman who owns it runs it with her daughter-in-law, Kayleigh. We chatted for quite a while and if I lived closer, I know I'd quickly become a regular customer! 

I enjoyed my little shopping expedition and found some Christmas gifts, as well as a new travel journal. I wandered over to the fishing docks and popped into the Farmer's Market (indoors, rather than on the docks), which was nice, but not as good as the one in Newport.

The sun was shining and it was getting warm. What a lovely morning!

After lunch, Rod and I headed over to Rocky Point so he could do a little fishing. 

A pipe, a cup of coffee and an Ace Hardware bucket. What more does a guy need?

While Rod was fishing, I made a return visit to Bandon Dunes in order to hike the Woodland Trail, which includes a labyrinth.

I wasn't quick enough to get a photo, but as I passed this pond a beautiful egret flew out of the tall grasses and right past me. It was stunning!

I headed out toward the labyrinth and once again, I was completely alone. It was a little unnerving since I was in the woods. Alone. Thankfully, I didn't encounter any weirdos or bears. It was actually very peaceful.

The labyrinth is comprised of a series of 11 circles (modeled after the one in Chartres, France), with only one way in and one way out. Again, I was completely alone and walked to the inner section very slowly and calmly, trying not to think of anything but my steps and my breathing. I'm not very good at meditation and once I got to the center, I was too impatient to walk back through each circle and wound up just stepping over the lines and back to the trail. It would be easy to blame my impatience on wanting to get back to Rod, but the truth of the matter is that I didn't really feel what I thought I might experience by walking a labyrinth. Maybe it's like meditation and it takes practice. 

Back to the trail and through the woods...

I returned to Rocky Point and while he didn't have any luck, Rod said he did enjoy fishing from the dock. 

Just as we were getting ready to leave, I spotted an eagle perched high in a tree! I took a few pictures with my phone, but they weren't very sharp. I'm learning that I really need to carry our 35mm digital camera (which has a nice zoom lens) with me at all times!

We returned to our campsite and listened to another game of the World Series, while eating our dinner by the fire. It's a lot of fun listening to the play-by-play, rather than watching a game on TV. 

The Astros won again.

October 28, 2018
Bandon to Depoe Bay
132 miles 
3.25 hours

Saturday morning and time to hitch up and head home. It was drizzly and 54 when we left our campsite. 

We decided to stop for lunch at our favorite restaurant in Florence. Nice end to another great road trip!

Bandon - Day Five

Bandon, Oregon
October 26, 2017
Bullards Beach State Park

After reading about all the great hiking trails at Bandon Dunes Golf Course, I decided to head over after breakfast and try a few. The Dunes is only a few minutes from the campground and it's gorgeous, reminding me of Torrey Pines with all the pine trees and sweeping ocean views.

I picked up a trail map at the main club house and set out on the Jamie McEwan Trail. The sun was shining and I was glad to be wearing shorts. It got pretty warm!

This trail leads from the Lodge along the top of the main resort dune ridge. The views of the golf course, with the ocean in the distance, were amazing!

Looking east (Highway 101 is just beyond the trees).

This invasive plant (Gorse) is still a problem in Oregon and I saw quite a bit on the trails. It may be invasive, but I still think it's very pretty.

Almost makes me wish I knew how to golf!

Finally some shade, although the sandy trail was still a workout!

Lovely view of the ocean.

I was surprised that there were very few golfers out on the links. Or on the trails! The weather couldn't have been more perfect.

Ugh! This was harder than it looks.

Madrone Lake

You can only see their silhouettes, but there are two deer just to the left of the building.

Grabbed a bottle of water at the club house and headed out to hike the beach trail.

The beach was completely deserted (for that matter, the golf course wasn't terribly busy, either!) and I wasn't able to locate the shipwrecked schooner Acme, which ran aground on Halloween night in 1924. I enjoyed my walk, but was worn out and ready to get back to the campground. Walking through the dunes was a lot more difficult than I imagined!

This is a moderate hike, but the sand dunes make it even more challenging.

After lunch, we drove around in search of some fishing sites. We went out Hwy. 42S, which was very pretty. The trees and bushes were just beginning to show some fall colors and looked gorgeous in the late afternoon light. 

We came upon a herd of elk in a large field. They were pretty curious, watching us as we stopped to snap a couple of pictures.

We found this nice spot (Rocky Point Country Park) just a few minutes away from our campground and the evening glow on the river was so very lovely. I spied a huge blue heron, but he was too quick for a photo.

There is nothing quite like being near water, whether it's the ocean, lake or river.

Looking Back - The Color of Water

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

The Color of Water by James McBride
Memoir
1997 Riverhead Trade (first published 1996)
Finished in January 1998
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Touches readers of all colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son.

Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve black children. James McBride, journalist, musician and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color Of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother.

The son of a black minister and a woman who would not admit she was white, James McBride grew up in "orchestrated chaos" with his eleven siblings in the poor, all-black projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn. "Mommy," a fiercely protective woman with "dark eyes full of pep and fire," herded her brood to Manhattan's free cultural events, sent them off on buses to the best (and mainly Jewish) schools, demanded good grades and commanded respect. As a young man, McBride saw his mother as a source of embarrassment, worry, and confusion--and reached thirty before he began to discover the truth about her early life and long-buried pain.

In The Color of Water, McBride retraces his mother's footsteps and, through her searing and spirited voice, recreates her remarkable story. The daughter of a failed itinerant Orthodox rabbi, she was born Rachel Deborah Shilsky (actually Ruchel Dwara Zylska) in Poland on April 1, 1921. Fleeing pogroms, her family emigrated to America and ultimately settled in Suffolk, Virginia, a small town where anti-Semitism and racial tensions ran high. With candor and immediacy, Ruth describes her parents' loveless marriage; her fragile, handicapped mother; her cruel, sexually-abusive father; and the rest of the family and life she abandoned.

At seventeen, after fleeing Virginia and settling in New York City, Ruth married a black minister and founded the all-black New Brown Memorial Baptist Church in her Red Hook living room. "God is the color of water," Ruth McBride taught her children, firmly convinced that life's blessings and life's values transcend race. Twice widowed, and continually confronting overwhelming adversity and racism, Ruth's determination, drive and discipline saw her dozen children through college--and most through graduate school. At age 65, she herself received a degree in social work from Temple University.

Interspersed throughout his mother's compelling narrative, McBride shares candid recollections of his own experiences as a mixed-race child of poverty, his flirtations with drugs and violence, and his eventual self-realization and professional success. The Color of Water touches readers of all colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son.

My Original Notes (1998):

Another wonderful memoir! Very inspirational. A look at racial identity through the eyes of a black man, born to a white, Jewish mother. McBride is one of twelve children! I enjoyed the alternating voices (his and his mother's), switching in each new chapter. McBride's mother had a very difficult life, but still managed to raise responsible children. They all went to college and many attended graduate school.

My Current Thoughts:

I remember that this was a very powerful memoir, but other than that, the details are sketchy. After reading the publisher's blurb, I feel that the book would make for a good discussion in my book club, perhaps combined with Rick Bragg's All Over But the Shoutin'. I'll have to recommend both of them at our annual planning meeting. They might work well in May for a Mother's Day theme.

Wordless Wednesday

Purple Haze Lavender Farm

Sequim, Washington

July 2018

For more Wordless Wednesday, click here.

A Month in Summary - July 2018

Purple Haze Lavender Farm

Sequim, Washington

July 2018

July was another fun-filled month in the Pacific Northwest. We celebrated the 4th a few days early at our annual neighborhood picnic, which was a lot of fun. Later in the week, I got to spend time with two blogging friends, Kay (of Kay's Reading Life) and Robin (of A Fondness For Reading). Another friend and her husband came to visit from Wyoming while Kay and her husband were in town and I had a great time catching up with them, as well as showing them around our neighborhood. It wasn't long before Rod and I were back on the road for a 11-day road trip to Washington. We returned to some of our favorite places to camp, in addition to discovering a few new spots. I'm still not reading nearly as much as I used to, but I'm very happy that I managed to finish three books!

Books Read in July:

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

My Life in France by Julia Child

Travels With Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck

First Lines:

On the night of October 4th, 1966, Val and I, both in late middle age, attended the opening of Many Are Called at the Museum of Modern Art--the first exhibit of the portraits taken by Walker Evans in the late 1930s on the New York City subways with a hidden camera. (Rules of Civility)

This is a book about some of the things I have loved most in life: my husband, Paul Child; la belle France; and the many pleasures of cooking and eating. It is also something new for me. Rather than a collection of recipes, I've put together a series of linked autobiographical stories, mostly focused on the years 1948 through 1954, when we lived in Paris and Marseille, and also a few of our later adventures in Provence. Those early years in France were among the best of my life. They marked a crucial period of transformation in which I found my true calling, experienced an awakening of the senses, and had such fun that I hardly stopped moving long enough to catch my breath. (My Life In France)

When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib case. In other words, I don't improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable. I set this matter down not to instruct others but to inform myself. (Travels With Charley in Search of America)

Movies & TV Series:

Jessica Jones - Season Two - I really enjoyed the first season of Jessica Jones and couldn't wait to watch the new season. It was good, but not nearly as good (or tense) as the first. As much as I hated David Tennant's character, the show really needs both Jessica and Kilgrave.

Luke Cage - Season One - Just one episode and that was enough for me to say no more.

The Bridge - Season Three - Not as good as the first two seasons, but I won't explain why due to spoilers.

The Greatest Showman - After hearing so many great comments about this movie, I couldn't wait to see it. Sadly, I'm in the minority. I really didn't care for it at all. La La Land is a much better modern musical.

A Wrinkle In Time - So disappointing! I read the book many years ago and was eager to see the movie, but it was far too sappy. I watched it with my mom and husband and none of us liked it.

Outings & Trips:

Boondocking in Tillamook, Oregon

Blue Heron French Cheese Company

Dosewallips State Park

Brinnon, Washington

Boondocking in Sequim, Washington

Purple Haze Lavender Farm

Lunch break.

Lake Crescent, Washington

Visitors:

 Kay and Teri

Internet friends since 1996

Kay and Robin

Blogging Friends

You can read more about this visit with these great friends here. 

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. Our weather continues to be mild, but we do get a few days of sunshine in between the overcast and drizzle. We're busy planning a big (two-month-long!) adventure for September and are hoping to bring some of our cooler weather to California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas!

Click on images for larger view.

Looking Back - Cold Mountain

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Fiction
1997 Atlantic Monthly Press
Finished in January 1998
Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

National Book Award winner in 1997

Publisher's Blurb:

Cold Mountain is a novel about a soldier’s perilous journey back to his beloved near the Civil War's end. At once a love story and a harrowing account of one man’s long walk home, Cold Mountain introduces a new talent in American literature.

Based on local history and family stories passed down by Frazier’s great-great-grandfather, Cold Mountain is the tale of a wounded Confederate soldier, Inman, who walks away from the ravages of the war and back home to his prewar sweetheart, Ada. His odyssey thru the devastated landscape of the soon-to-be-defeated South interweaves with Ada’s struggle to revive her father’s farm, with the help of an intrepid young drifter named Ruby. As their long-separated lives begin to converge at the close of the war, Inman and Ada confront the vastly transformed world they’ve been delivered.

Frazier reveals insight into human relations with the land and the dangers of solitude. He also shares with the great 19th century novelists a keen observation of a society undergoing change. Cold Mountain recreates a world gone by that speaks to our time.

My Original Notes (1997):

Well, I hate to say it but I was very disappointed with this novel. I had heard it was so good and I love southern writers, so I thought it would be great. It was mediocre. It moved very slowly, with very little dialogue and not much action. Even the lengthy descriptions of the landscape became tiresome to read. This novel didn't hold my interest very well and it was a chore to keep reading it. I did like the device of a story within a story, however. Reminded me of [Willa] Cather.

My Current Thoughts:

I don't remember much about this book other than the tedious nature of the writing. I think Frazier took two full pages to describe a raindrop dripping from a leaf in the woods! This is the rare case of the movie being much better than the book.

One Year Anniversary!

First Trip

 Lynden, Washington

August 2, 2017

Last Trip

 Alfred A. Loeb State Park

April 18, 2018

It was one year ago today that we bought our Escape 19. We loved our travels on the road in this little fiberglass "egg" and in the short eight months that we owned her, we 

• traveled 3,204 miles
• spent 25 nights camping
• boondocked 3 nights
• camped in 4 Oregon State Parks
• camped in 2 Washington State Parks
• camped in 1 California State Park
• camped in 2 KOAs
• visited the Olympic National Park (and a rain forest)
• visited the Redwood National Forest
• visited family and friends in California
• camped with a herd of elk, peahens and peacocks
• spotted eagles and great blue heron
• 5 signs warning of bears or cougars
• 0 bears or cougars sighted
• 1 sewer hose lost on freeway
• and only got locked out of our rig once

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in our travel trailer and you can read all about our travels in "Sweet Pea" by clicking here. I am still working on my travel posts, but will update this link as more posts are added.

Wordless Wednesday

Purple Haze Lavender Farm

Sequim, Washington

July 2018

Almost five years to the day, I shared another set of eagle photos, also in Sequim!

For more Wordless Wednesday, click here.