Still looking at pix from that same day along the Oregon coast, I like this one of an empty giant stone portal on the beach. A doorway of perception, does it open out or in?
3483 Doors
Both I guess, like that kids song, “Go in and out the doorway…” Next in today’s stone collection this row of stone blades slicing sky, and in raging Oregon storms, giant waves.
3512 Blades
Nearby is a walled garden of secrets. Looks like pirates would’ve hidden out in that cave, and their treasure might still be in there. Or speaking of stills, maybe rum runners used it on dark nights. Those clumps on the foreground cliffs guarding the entrance are cormorant nests.
3515 Garden
By now we were well ready for a stretch break, so after much discussion we chose the charming town of Bandon. You can make out the angled light brown rectangle of the airport just right of center beneath the distant hills.
3527 Bandon
After feeding Tripp and meeting an energetic young caretaker as we jumped, stretched, and ran around, we took off into the much longer shadows and flew a little long after takeoff so we could get a look at the town.
3544 Abandoned
Judging by Bandon’s abandoned forest of pilings in the harbor, this was once a thriving town. Logging I guess. Now it’s a friendly little town struggling to adapt to the new economy, and beckoning us for a return visit when we’d have time to find our way in for some exploration. Eight minutes later we passed a quiet estuary where this kite surfer was riding the same strong evening winds that were adding to our speed.
3554 Wind Rider
I have a bunch more pix from this last hour of flying but the light was fading, haze was increasing. So let me end with a tale of two beds. First, the best hotel bed we enjoyed on this adventure, at the spacious and delightful Phoenix Inn hotel in Olympia.
0357 Best Bed
Now, let me digress for a moment to describe the lay of the land in the quiet little village of McBeth just above the mouth of the Klamath. It’s surrounded by a tall rock dike to protect it from tsunamis like the one from AK that destroyed it in the 1960s. I’ll show you daytime aerial pix of it in the next post, but for now imagine us landing just before dark and debating whether to pitch our tent or get a room on the other side of the tall dike ringed with barbed wire. We ended up scoring a bargain room about $20 less than our Olympia room, including a ride with our stuff around the dike into town. It had a tidy 1950s motel flavor, and this bed.
0404 Worst Bed
Now you may notice something unusual where the gold blanket starts. That’s our queen-sized airmat on top of two double beds pushed together. When we’d tried the bed it was so uncomfortable that I climbed over the dike and two barbed wire fences in the dark to carry the heavy airmat back to the room. The only hotel bed I can recall that was worse, is one we had at the volcano park in Hawaii many years ago. It was missing the mattress, and we had to sleep on the box spring. This one was better. A little. But that didn’t dampen our fun together, and I could hear the gals laughing at the top of the dike as they waited and worried about me falling. That bed is another great memory from the adventure. 🙂
John & Anne Wiley 
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