Day 10: A Very Short Oregon Coast Vacation

Ireland’s (Gold Beach) to Harris Beach (Brookings), 28 miles, August 4

I woke up in another misty coastal morning and made a mistake that would haunt me for the rest of the trip: I picked up too many rocks, a fitting fate for the Geologist’s daughter, I suppose. I was excited when I awoke, knowing I would be going to the beach to make a BGH memorial out of rocks, something I did when my dear friend Jim Garrett, the chair of the English Department at Cal State LA, had died too young. Instead of going to Jim’s memorial, we went on our scheduled camping trip to the coast, and I wrote messages to Jim in leaves, seaweed, rocks…so now I could do that for my father.

I had not anticipated the activity of walking to the waterline, collecting rocks, luffing them back, and arranging them, all of which played havoc with my lower back, but it seemed a small price to pay to honor my father, and so I gathered white rocks, of which there are many at the Ireland’s beach, and I built his memorial sign, high enough above the waves to photograph later and show Robert, but low enough so the sea could take it. When Robert woke up he came to see, and we placed the memorial rocks we had painted the previous night, and then we were off to the next day.

This little respite in Gold Beach was useful because we paid our bills and learned that my computer did not allow me to use Word, making it effectively useless, but also because we learned that our camping reservations were all messed up, something we had not previously understood, and largely owning to user incompetence and the vagaries of the reservation system (read: we forget to check the last box). However, our reservations for Harris Beach near Brookings, Oregon had held up, and so we had a very short journey and time to kill.

I wanted to find a place my father had always taken me for breakfast after staying at Ireland’s, and I wanted to mail some things from the memorial to my sister Ariana and Dad’s great friends Royden and Sandie in New Zealand, so we set off to find the post office. The little coastal towns have a way of labeling these places, and so yes, we found the post office, but no one was there, which at first mystified me and then made sense when I realized it was Sunday. So then we set off to look for the little breakfast place my father had loved, crossing the Rogue River on one of those fantastic Oregon bridges.

We drove for a way on the river side, stopping to photograph the most perfect trailer for the Bus, and past a watering hole bar my father would have loved, neon signs for Hamm’s beer in the windows, but I knew we were on the wrong side of the river, and the flags and signs were getting Trumpier, so we backtracked. Across the bridge again we found the place, Indian Creek, and took a picture of the Bus there, but we had already had breakfast and were ready for lunch

Somehow we found ourselves near the river by a touristy looking place, but signs pointed to food, and there was a cute, blue Westie parked there, so we stopped by, taking pictures of the two busses, then devouring some pretty decent (and fresh! There was a fish market next door) fish tacos and fish and chips. As we were finishing our lunch the blue Westie pulled up, travelers from the bay Area, and they asked us for recommendations on the coast, so I shared my thoughts about Honeyman State Park near Florence, as they were kayakers and there is a great lake with beaver dams there.

It was time for capitalism, so we headed to Brookings and Fred Meyer. Anyone reading this from Oregon knows just exactly what Fred Meyer is like, but for other folks, well, think Target crossed with Costco crossed with Whole Foods, because you can get some great cheese and wine and veggies there, but we also needed pillows (I forgot them at home), and camping supplies. A nice lady helped us sign up for their discount card, saving us 100$, and I bought a ton of postcards, and we had a grand old time, and then it was time to head to the campground at Harris Beach. But first we stopped at Napa Auto Parts because Robert loves a Napa and auto parts.

We had first camped at Harris Beach sometime around 2010, and we were happy to be there again, our first night of camping due to the Bus’s mechanical issues and out poor understanding of the registration site, and there we were, ensconced between two Yurts, for Oregon campgrounds rent Yurts, when the Bus guys appeared. The first one was a guy who correctly identified the Bus (Dormobile, 66’) and regaled Robert with tales of his buddy who had busses, and the second cat was originally from Malibu and now running a place outside Yreka with a lumber mill, but the Bus Love was all the thing. We went to the beach, then Robert made some amazing grilled cheese sandwiches in the fire, then we collapsed into bed. I had the best night of sleep so far on the trip, safe in the arms of the Bus., but still thinking of my father, and how the tide would likely have taken his memorial rock post away by now, but I wasn’t feeling sad about it, just happy that I had made the effort to remember him in such a way, fleeting, not permanent, but with effort, like so much of life.