3985
This is US 101, the main street of Lincoln City, as you approach the D River Crossing at the middle of town:
Note that I said the middle, not the center. Lincoln City doesn't have a center. It has four or five of them.
L.C. is a town of towns. In 1965, the communities of Oceanlake, Delake, Nelscott, Taft, and Cutler City, some organized towns and some not, decided they were stronger as a unit than they were separately so, like big stones on a bangle bracelet, they unified. Lincoln City was chosen by vote because it was seen as arrogant to name it after one of the larger towns. And so it became, a small town on the Oregon Coast that was scarely a mile wide ... but was about seven miles long.
And the string that holds those pearls together is US 101 (as a matter of fact, one of the rubrics for each urban center that strings together in L.C. is just that, pearls. They know what they have there, I guess).
Now this may seem a little daffy, but for me, for a visit to the beach, one of the simpler pleasures is watching the miles of L.C. roll by via a car window; watching the numbered streets count down from 40th Street in the north (at least that's where 101 joins the grid) to D River then up 69th Street in the south.
And a picture of cars along 101 as you go through that gangly long town is one of the fondest memories I have.
No comments:
Post a Comment