Bandon - Day Three

October 24, 2017
Bandon, Oregon
Bullards Beach State Park

It was 48 degrees when we woke up, but the sun was shining and it warmed up to 74 later in the day. After breakfast, I decided to take the truck and drive over to Bandon (about 10 minutes from our campground), while Rod worked on an editing project. I parked at the Coquille jetty and got some shots of the waves crashing over the rocks, as well as some pictures of the lighthouse. (You can never have too many pictures of a lighthouse!)

The waves were really big, with lots of spray blowing as they crashed against the rocks.

The South Jetty was built in 1906 to stem a rash of shipwrecks on the Coquille River bar. When the Oliver Olson rammed the jetty so hard in 1953 that the ship couldn't be pulled free, the South Jetty was extended by building right over the ship's hull. Now sailors complain the uneven lengths of the river's two jetties make the bar more treacherous than ever. (Oregon.com)

Signage about tsunamis. I pay attention to escape routes, but don't spend any time worrying.

There were a lot of huge trees and logs rolling in the surf. These can be quite dangerous to people in the water or along the shoreline.

I like this view of the Coquille Lighthouse from this side of the river. I wrote about here, as well.

I could live in this! 

I headed over to the Bandon Beach Loop and walked along the bluff trail and then down the path to the beach. The sun was shining and it was absolutely gorgeous!

Table Rock

My granddaughter and I have walked through some of these openings in the rocks at low-tide. It's interesting to see them from up above on the bluff, with the waves covering the sand where we walked a few years ago.

Face Rock State Scenic Viewpoint

Do you see the face of a woman looking skyward?

According to a Coquille tribal legend, the face in Face Rock belongs to Ewauna, daughter of Chief Siskiyou, who had traveled here to a great potlatch feast in his honor. Ewauna had never seen the ocean before, so one night she sneaked to the beach for a moonlight swim. In the water she was grabbed by the evil ocean spirit Seatka. But she refused to look into his eyes, knowing that this was how he controlled his victims. Instead she fixed her stare on the North Star, and defiantly gazes there even today. (Oregon.com)

How about now? It's a profile and the mouth, which looks slightly open, is on the right. The nose is in line with the horizon.

This beach looks otherwordly!

The Southern Oregon Coast is composed of rock that began a billion years ago as a volcanic island archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. The drifting of the continents has since "rafted" these ancient islands and reefs onto the Oregon shore. Many of the islands at Bandon are composed of blueschist, an extremely resilient rock prized for jetty construction. (Oregon.com)

Photo Credit: Oregon.com 

These are the cottages at Windermere On the Beach, which we've stayed in a couple of times. They are quite nice, especially the furthest one on the north end.

After I returned from my long walk, I puttered around getting ready for dinner and Game 1 of the World Series. 

It was fun to sit by the campfire and listen to the game on the radio. (Well, actually a radio app on my phone.)

An all-American evening. All that's missing is the apple pie!

Click on photos to enlarge.

Wordless Wednesday

Depoe Bay, Oregon

July 2018

For more Wordless Wednesday, click here.

The Breakdown

The Breakdown by B. A. Paris
Thriller
2017 MacMillan Audio
Read by Georgia Maguire
Finished on December 6, 2017
Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

On a rainy night, Cass takes the shortcut home through the woods, even though her husband has warned that it could be dangerous. With just minutes left until she's at their house, she sees a car stopped on the side of the road with a woman sitting alone inside. Has the car broken-down? Does she need help? Cass waits for a moment, but as the rain crashes down, she soon continues on.

When the news reports the next morning that a woman was killed in the woods, Cass can't stop thinking about it. Pained by guilt, she has been forgetting everything: where she left the car, if she took her pills, the alarm code to the house. What she can't forget is the woman she might have saved... and that maybe the killer saw her. Then the silent phone calls start, and the feeling that someone is watching her...

I started reading this in print and was so annoyed with the mediocre writing, I quickly set it aside. Since I loved listening to the author's debut thriller (Behind Closed Doors), I decided to try this one on audio, as well. I was instantly hooked. Maguire is an excellent reader, which helped keep me interested in this predictable psychological thriller. Overall, I enjoyed the book but it wasn't nearly as good as Behind Closed Doors. I'm not sure I'll bother with her latest release (Bring Me Back) unless I start hearing rave reviews. 

Winter Street

Winter Street by Elin Hilderbrand (Winter Series #1)
Fiction
2014 Little, Brown and Company
Finished on December 5, 2017
Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

In bestseller Elin Hilderbrand's first Christmas novel, a family gathers on Nantucket for a holiday filled with surprises.

Kelley Quinn is the owner of Nantucket's Winter Street Inn and the proud father of four, all of them grown and living in varying states of disarray. Patrick, the eldest, is a hedge fund manager with a guilty conscience. Kevin, a bartender, is secretly sleeping with a French housekeeper named Isabelle. Ava, a school teacher, is finally dating the perfect guy but can't get him to commit. And Bart, the youngest and only child of Kelley's second marriage to Mitzi, has recently shocked everyone by joining the Marines.

As Christmas approaches, Kelley is looking forward to getting the family together for some quality time at the inn. But when he walks in on Mitzi kissing Santa Claus (or the guy who's playing Santa at the inn's annual party), utter chaos descends. With the three older children each reeling in their own dramas and Bart unreachable in Afghanistan, it might be up to Kelley's ex-wife, nightly news anchor Margaret Quinn, to save Christmas at the Winter Street Inn.

Before the mulled cider is gone, the delightfully dysfunctional Quinn family will survive a love triangle, an unplanned pregnancy, a federal crime, a small house fire, many shots of whiskey, and endless rounds of Christmas caroling, in this heart-warming novel about coming home for the holidays.

Winter Street was a quick and easy read, but far too fluffy, contrived and sentimental, even for a light Christmas novel. Will I continue with the series this coming Christmas? I wouldn't bet on it.

Looking Back - She's Come Undone

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.

She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb
Fiction
1996 Washington Square Press (first published 1992)
Finished in December 1997
Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

"Mine is a story of craving: an unreliable account of lusts and troubles that began, somehow, in 1956 on the day our free television was delivered...."

Meet Dolores Price. She's thirteen, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Beached like a whale in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally rolls into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before really going belly up.

In this extraordinary coming-of-age odyssey, Wally Lamb invites us to hitch a wild ride on a journey of love, pain, and renewal with the most heartbreakingly comical heroine to come along in years. At once a fragile girl and a hard-edged cynic, so tough to love yet so inimitably lovable, Dolores is as poignantly real as our own imperfections. She's Come Undone includes a promise: you will never forget Dolores Price.

My Original Notes (1997):

At first I didn't care for this book. It seemed like all the rest of [the books I've read] this year - some poor girl who lives in a life of neglect, abuse, etc., struggling to get a grip on life and become a better person. But about halfway through, it grabbed me. I couldn't put it down. My heart went out to Dolores. She was in a marriage very much like my first and experienced so much that I had. I could feel her pain and confusion. Many may criticize this book, claiming it touched on too many bad events happening to one person, but life is like that. Some people do have bad experiences over and over again. Eventually, as with Dolores (and me) you do get a "happy ending." I'll read Lamb's next book!

My Current Thoughts:

Goodness. I have absolutely no recollection of this novel. And it obviously resonated with my thirty-something-year-old self, didn't it? Not only do I not remember any of the details, but I no longer own a copy, so I must not have planned to read it a second time. I did go on to read Lamb's next book, I Know This Much Is True, but haven't read any of his more recent works. I should remedy that!

Bandon, Oregon - Day Two

October 23, 2017
Bandon, Oregon
Bullards Beach State Park

I no longer dread Mondays!

We awoke sometime after 7:00 and had a nice, slow morning enjoying our coffee as we caught up on emails and the news. The sun was shining and it was beginning to warm up. On the Oregon coast, 70 degrees feels hot!

After breakfast (which was a frustrating endeavor with our ancient Coleman stove -- not enough BTUs and uneven cooking), I decided to go for a bike ride and took a trail out to the Coquille River Lighthouse, which is about three miles each way. The path was covered with pine needles and the occasional tree root, so I had to be extra careful and finally decided to move out on to the road. I was pretty much the only one on the road, so I wasn't worried about not having a bike lane.

The Coquille River

The campground has several sites for horse camping, with "accommodations" for the horse, as well as the riders. I didn't see anyone riding the week were were there, but I did see a lot of horse trails that lead out to the lighthouse and river, so I'll bet it gets busy in the summer.

I've visited this lighthouse on previous trips to Bandon, but it was fun riding out to see it on such a beautiful day.

I can't get over how much wood washes ashore on the Oregon coast. And how large the trees are that find their way onto the beaches. Simply amazing.

There were a few fishing boats out on the Coquille River and the weather couldn't have been more perfect.

My favorite view of the lighthouse. I love the way the water splashes up against the rocks at the base of the building.

The ride back to the campground was just as pretty, although there was quite a headwind! I loved being out on my bike, riding on a long, flat road, with the wind in my face and the sun on my back. This was my first long ride since moving to Oregon and it was exhilarating!

When I got back to the campground, I decided to keep riding and went up to Loop B & C to check out those sites. There were quite a few with a lot more space (and longer pads), so I made of note of those for future reference. I also spotted these wild turkeys. They weren't a bit too shy and didn't rush to get away from me.

After lunch, I got back on my bike and rode out to Hwy. 101, going only as far as the bridge since there was a lot of traffic heading into Bandon.

Any day with a bike ride is a great day and this one was no exception!

A Gentleman in Moscow

Update: Read again (on audio) for book club. Loved it just as much, but preferred the printed edition over the audiobook. Finished on July 3, 2018 Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding)

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Fiction
2016 Viking
Finished on December 1, 2017
Rating: 5/5 (Excellent!)

Publisher's Blurb:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility—a transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel

With his breakout debut novel, Rules of Civility, Amor Towles established himself as a master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction, bringing late 1930s Manhattan to life with splendid atmosphere and a flawless command of style. Readers and critics were enchanted; as NPR commented, “Towles writes with grace and verve about the mores and manners of a society on the cusp of radical change.”

A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him a doorway into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.

What an outstanding novel! I first learned of A Gentleman in Moscow when I read Bellezza's glowing review in the fall of 2016. I have only read a few Russian novels (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Anna Karenina and Doctor Zhivago) and after winning Meredith's give-away for Towles' novel, I was a little concerned that it was going to be a heavier read than I originally thought. Meredith shared some lovely passages from the book on her blog, but still. 1920 Russia. This was not going to be a beach read. I placed the lovely book in my bookcase and there it sat. When we moved to Oregon, it was gently packed amidst hundreds of other books and eventually returned to that bookcase where it continued to lurk. I'm not sure what inspired me to finally pull it off the shelf, but I am so glad I did! It was not at all what I expected (dark, dreary, dense, full of boring historical details, etc.) and I could not put it down.

I love it when a book pulls you in with its quiet prose, and your inner voice says, This is going to be remarkable. This is going to be your #1 book of the year. This is surely going to be a classic.  I felt that way about Markus Zusak's gem, The Book Thief. I felt that way about Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See. Towles' exquisite storytelling is the sort one wishes to savor, to read slowly, then turn back and re-read passages, appreciating them for their beauty and inspiration.

'Tis a funny thing, reflected the Count as he stood ready to abandon his suite. From the earliest age, we must learn to say good-bye to friends and family. We see our parents and siblings off at the station; we visit cousins, attend schools, join the regiment; we marry, or travel abroad. It is part of the human experience that we are constantly gripping a good fellow by the shoulders and wishing him well, taking comfort from the notion that we will hear word of him soon enough.

But experience is less likely to teach us how to bid our dearest possessions adieu. And if it were to? We wouldn't welcome the education. For eventually, we come to hold our dearest possessions more closely than we hold our friends. We carry them from place to place, often at considerable expense and inconvenience; we dust and polish their surfaces and reprimand children for playing too roughly in their vicinity--all the while, allowing memories to invest them with greater and greater importance. This armoire, we are prone to recall, is the very one in which we hid as a boy; and it was these silver candelabra that lined our table on Christmas Eve; and it was with this handkerchief that she once dried her tears, et cetera, et cetera. Until we imagine that these carefully preserved possessions might give us genuine solace in the face of a lost companion.

But, of course, a thing is just a thing.

and 

"I'll tell you what is convenient," he said after a moment. "To sleep until noon and have someone bring your your breakfast on a tray. To cancel an appointment at the very last minute. To keep a carriage waiting at the door of one party, so that on a moment's notice it can whisk you away to another. To sidestep marriage in your youth and put off having children altogether. These are the greatest of conveniences, Anushka--and at one time I had them all. But in the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most."

and

Alexander Rostov was neither scientist nor sage; but at the age of sixty-four he was wise enough to know that life does not proceed by leaps and bounds. It unfolds. At any given moment, it is the manifestation of a thousand transitions. Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate, and our opinions evolve--if not glacially, then at least gradually. Such that the events of an average day are as likely to transform who we are as a pinch of pepper is to transform a stew. And yet, for the Count, when the doors to Anna's bedroom opened and Sofia stepped forward in her gown, at that very moment she crossed the threshold into adulthood. On one side of that divide was a girl of five or ten or twenty with a quiet demeanor and a whimsical imagination who relied on him for companionship and counsel; while on the other side was a young woman of discernment and grace who need rely on no one but herself.

I could have easily read this book in a few short days, but I took my time and found myself living in the world of the Metropol with Count Rostov, Anna, Nina, Sofia, Marina, Andrey and Emile. Towles has created a great cast of unforgettable characters!  

Oh, and my inner voice was absolutely right. A Gentleman in Moscow did become my #1 book of 2017. Highly recommend!

Be sure to take a look at the author's website. I could spend hours reading through all the extra material about this novel, as well as that for Rules of Civility, which I am currently reading (and loving!). Amor Towles has joined the ranks of my all-time favorite authors. I hope he's busy writing another novel!

Click here to listen to an interview with the author on NPR.

A Month in Summary - June 2018

Humbug Mountain State Park

Port Orford, Oregon

June 2018

Another month has come and gone. I've noticed that when we're traveling, the days just fly by. We were gone for two weeks this month, camping in three Oregon state parks on the coast (between home and the California border), as well as "boondocking" at a couple of nearby wineries. It was a great trip and, as is with our new lifestyle, we started planning for a new trip for July while we were still on the road! We didn't have any house guests this month, but my dad and stepmom stopped by for a quick visit on their own travels back to the Kitsap Peninsula (WA) from California. We swapped road trip stories as we enjoyed a nice lunch at The Horn in Depoe Bay. Still no puzzle time and I only managed to complete two books, but I did finish posting all my travel essays for our 2017 Olympic Peninsula trip. You can find those posts here.

Books Read in June:

The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

First Lines:

Daughter, I have a story to tell you. I have wanted to tell it to you for a very long time. But unlike Babar or Eloise or any of the other stories that you loved to hear, this one is not funny. This one is not clever. It is simply true. It is my story, yet I do not have the words to tell it. Instead, I pick up my needles and I knit. Every stitch is a letter. A row spells out "I love you." I knit "I love you" into everything I make. Like a prayer, or a wish, I send it out to you, hoping you can hear me. Hoping, daughter, that the story I am knitting reaches you somehow. Hoping, that my love reaches you somehow. (The Knitting Circle - Prologue)

Okoloma was one of my greatest childhood friends. He lived on my street and looked after me like a big brother: if I liked a boy, I would ask Okoloma's opinion. Okoloma was funny and intelligent and wore cowboy boots that were pointy at the tips. In December 2005, in a plane crash in southern Nigeria, Okoloma died. It is still hard for me to put into words how I felt. Okoloma was a person I could argue with, laugh with and truly talk to. He was also the first person to call me a feminist. (We Should All Be Feminists)

Movies & TV Series:

The Bridge - We finished Season Two, which was good but I liked the first season better. We'll start Season Three in another week or so. I love the cast and think the writing & acting is excellent.

The Shape of Water - This was a very odd film, but we both liked it. I enjoyed seeing Richard Jenkins (from 6 Feet Under) and thought Sally Hawkins was outstanding in the lead role.

Amy - Wow. This documentary was well done, insightful and heartbreaking. Winehouse had such incredible talent as a jazz singer. It's a terrible shame that so many talented artists (musicians, actors, etc.) rise to fame and fortune and are unable to handle the pressure and demands of that lifestyle.

Lost in Space - I grew up watching the original TV series and am now enjoying this updated version. We've binged on Season One and it's gone from fun and entertaining to predictable, silly and sappy. If anything, it's inspired me to go back and watch the 1965 show on Hulu. I want to see just how Machiavellian Dr. Smith was since I remember him as more of a bumbling idiot than a devious con-artist. 

Outings & Trips:

 Humbug Mountain State Park
Port Orford, Oregon

(Can you find our motorhome?)

Chetco River

 Alfred A. Loeb State Park
Brookings, Oregon

Eel Lake
 William M. Tugman State Park
Lakeside, Oregon

Emerson Vineyards

Monmouth, Oregon

Eola Hills Wine Cellars

Salem, Oregon

We camped in Humbug Mountain State Park (Port Orford, OR), Alfred A. Loeb State Park (Brookings, OR) and William M. Tugman State Park (Lakeside, OR). We also "boondocked" (dry camping - no hook ups) at Emerson Vineyards and Eola Hills Wine Cellars, both of which are in the Willamette Valley. I plan to blog more in-depth about this trip in the coming months, so stay tuned.

Visitors:

Dad & June - the other Happy Campers!

The Horn Public House

Depoe Bay, Oregon

Delicious fish tacos & beer 

(and, if you're ambitious, within walking distance from our house!)

Depoe Bay Harbor

Depoe Bay 

(Click here for more information)

Have a safe and Happy 4th of July!

Click on images to enlarge them.