Ten Days Later!

Goodbye no sales tax, hello booze at gas stations. I guess every place has its own charms.

We finally left Florence on the 22nd. We've gone through Gardiner, Reedsport, Winchester Bay, Lakeside, North Bend, Coos Bay, Bandon, Langlois, Port Orford, Gold Beach, Brookings, and Crescent City, outside which we're currently camped. Gardiner was sad... a dying little town that used to be a thriving port until people stopped sailing. Brookings would have been just another town, except that we were given a rack and a half of ribs. You have not seen ravenous eating until you've watched two hungry bikers mow down on pure, delicious protein.

You could -see- the heat change coming into Brookings. The California climate is just a bit more humid and warm, and it's visible in this thin fog hanging over everything even when it's clear. Hazy days, not lazy days.

We've seen so many amazing things recently. The last push down the coast was beautiful; I know I won't remember all of the things here, but I'll try. Outside Gold Beach was this huge rock - 'kissing rock' - with cracks all through it and wonderful climbing. By cracks I mean anywhere from tiny to 6 feet wide, running 30 feet into the rockface. Pretty wonderful, but definitely an easy place to get fucked up by the tide coming in. There seem to be a million big rocks like that just sitting out off the coast, or on the coast, or a mile inland in somebody's back yard, but kissing rock was one of the largest. Maybe 150 feet tall? not sure at all, and almost as wide.

We saw a 'giraffe swan' - so named by me because that is what it looked like. Was probably just an albino heron or some such. Do those even exist? We see a lot of herons. There's usually one hanging out in the river when we camp by one.

Lily pad pond dried out so it was a jumble of stems.. almost all the water was gone, and the plants were scrunched down in this thick tangle, pads tossed into the air and curling in the heat above 8 inches of shriveled stem over the water.

North Bend had a bridge that took us half an hour to walk over. Aaaaand it had THE most bumpy roads and sidewalks in the world, and the nastiest 'nice' laundromat ever. 17 bucks on laundry, but we did get our sleeping bags and all our clothing clean and mostly dry.

Every bookstore inside of 150 miles is now our acquaintance, and none of them have The Dragon Reborn.

Wind sucks sometimes.

We went to church one day, caught the last half of the sermon, got half a cup of free coffee, got a box of free food, and were fed elk soup at this family's house. The whole experience was very good and moderately awkward.

Myrtlewood gift shop in Langlois was amazing. Aside from the awesome everything that was there, the work spaces were amazing. This sweet lady showed us around the whole place and told us stories. Her husband's work station for epoxy was the best. The resin had dripped all down over the edges of the benches after pouring it on the wood pieces, and it made these rows of epoxy icycles. 300 or so foot-long yellow spear heads..

Sixes River for camping on our anniversary, where we saw a beaver, tiny frogs, and a heron, and didn't see what we hope was an elk.

Humbug Mountain. Gorgeous. Saw a branch hanging that looked like a dead antelope, and my brain taught me that the antelope got there because of a flying bear. This flybear had gone exploring at the 'wildlife safari walkthrough' thingety near Port Orford, and talked with a tiger who told stories about how his great grandfather used to hunt antelope in Africa. So the flybear flew there and got one and flew back with it and hid it in a tree on Humbug Mountain.

Wall of rock that was green. It looked like the color of sagebrush in the springtime, or a sulferous crystal or something. Other wall of rock that was black and lined and wonderful, under a pink sunset and some hanging grass coming into Gold Beach.

Cape Sebastian was ridiculously difficult to climb. We are getting massively strong. We're not just people.... we're mega people! (If you have not seen it, locate and watch a movie called Mega Pirhana.)

Tallest bridge in Oregon, Thomas Creek, was 345 feet above ground and pretty unimpressive for how talked up it was. And then we passed 'Bruce's Bones Creek'. Sorry daddy :)

For our celebration times, we bought booze in Brookings and hauled it the 20-some miles down to Jedediah Smith State Park. A bottle fits in a bag, but the 12pack of Hamms we got couldn't, so I carried it as a backpack, because I am that fucking awesome. I have a picture of it, and when I eventually find a way to put pictures online, you will see.

The redwoods are lovely. Yesterday we found this amazing spot on the river, though, and it really was one of the most fascinating and beautiful places I've ever seen. Beyond description. Soapstone sculpted into everything you can imagine, including a giant octopus and a giant angry man thing that come alive after sunset and eat bikers who stayed to late. Swirls and twists and cavities, lines of marbled rock, patches of smooth bright white crystal 2 feet tall running as a line through the rock, clear water in a tiny, narrow river dropping into deep pools and running over shallow sandy and rocky bottoms.... SO amazing.

Jed Smith has awesome Hiker Biker sites, but we can't use them because they shut that area down for construction.... so they put the HBs in a tent site, which we've had to ourselves :) It's been good. Although I should have learned my lesson last time I went biking after a drink, I apparently haven't yet. After a good amount of liquid poison I thought it would be a good idea to bike to the bathroom.... at least I put my helmet on first. Someday I'll learn. Maybe I'll just put a huge sign on my bike that says 'Have you been drinking? No bikey for drunky!!' or some such. Or maybe I should lock up my bike before I begin booziness. Whatever it takes...