Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 39: Beverly Beach and Otter Rock

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Now, we're on the northbound leg out of Newport on Hwy 101 and the going-home energy is gathering. I didn't know it quite yet, but it was there.

There are a number of just-offshore rocks along the beach just north of the Yaquina Head promontory. They're visible as you tool past on 101, and a good place to look at them is at the state recreation area just in that area, Beverly Beach.

This is a beach access I know of from little-kid time, and it has changed greatly. Yurts didn't exist then, it it has one; we walked past it after we used the toilet. It looked comfortable. Oh, and public toilet there? Immaculate. Highly recommended. 

Coming into the area, you roll up to a manned pay station and sort of a gatehouse. The day-use area is, however, free and that's where we were here. There's a little arched bridge, totally Oregon State Park style, over this small stream, which is called Spencer Creek. Getting to the beach is quick and easy as going under that McCullough-esque bridge you see in the picture above.

I took the opportunity to zoom in on that rock just off-shore through the bridge arch.

That little mesa out there just beyond the surf is the eponymous thing that eponymed the adjacent community of Otter Rock - that is to day, it is Otter Rock. 

I didn't find if there're any otters on it that day, though. I was pleased just to be able to look. 

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 32: Fleet Base Newport

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This is a view of Yaquina Bay from the street that goes down to the Bayfront from the end of the Bay Bridge. I think the name of the street is Naterlin Drive but it's featured on no street signs.

That dock with the three vessels parked along side and its support buildings adjacent is a very important part of our national infrastructure. It's NOAA's Marine Operations Center-Pacific ... essentially speaking, NOAA's US West Coast headquarters. It's NOAA's Pacific fleet base, and a very important thing to Newport, not to mention a rightful point of pride.

NOAA defines it thusly:

MOC-P supports five ships, including vessels homeported in California and Alaska. The center and ships are part of the Silver Spring, MD based NOAA Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, which includes civilians and NOAA Corps officers. 

The ships in NOAA’s Pacific fleet collect data essential to protecting marine mammals, coral reefs and historic shipwrecks, managing commercial marine fish stocks, understanding climate processes, and producing nautical charts that help keep mariners safe. NOAA ships also deploy and help maintain buoys that gather oceanographic and weather information and warn of tsunamis.

The Newport facility also houses the Marine Operations directorate, which oversees the Pacific, Pacific-Islands, and Atlantic marine centers and all NOAA ship operations.

Very important and vital.

I remember hearing a while back that NOAA was thinking of moving that facility out of Newport but our federal politicos Did The Thing That Had To Be Done and kept it based on the Oregon Coast. They have a lease running through 2039. 

Something every Oregonian should be proud of, I think.

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 29: The Devil's Churn

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This is a spot worth seeing, and we felt emotions worth feeling.

There seem to be a surplus of places in wild area's like this named for the Devil. God may own the world, I guess, but the Devil's doing well enough to get naming rights to things. The Devil has a Punchbowl up near Otter Rock, and a Churn just south of Yachats.

Maybe that's where he gets his butter, who knows? 

But, in seriousness, what the Devil's Churn is, is a very very small inlet of the ocean. A very long time ago, the Pacific started worrying at a small crevice in the rocky shore. That crevice became a cave, which probably collapsed to form a crevasse, and in which the ocean's surf just kept working away at until it gets very narrow and very dramatic.

It is said that the incoming waves impacting the narrow end of the crevasse can send spray up hundreds of feet, but even if it isn't doing that, it's still impressive to watch. 

I can still hear the crashing of the water coming in.

This is a few minutes south of Yachats on US 101, though if you aren't familiar with the craggy shore, it might seem like forever. Leaving Yachats means the end of the friendly, flat and open shore of the central Coast and Lincoln County for the aggressively uncompromising crags of Cape Perpetua. This is USFS land, and is managed by the US Government. The wayside is comfortable and impressive, and offers this great view.

But you have to have a little bit of guts to drive that stretch of OCH. There's precious little shoulder on the seaward side, which drops straight away; this caused me to grip the door handle a little more firmly on the way down, the Brown Eyed Girl (in the pilot's seat) to be similarly wary on the way back, and both of us, I think, to respect the existential practicality of the average Oregon Coast resident, who countenances this sort of thing on a daily basis.

They always did seem to be the doughty sorts.

The wayside lets you get, to a degree, a bit up-close and personal with the business end of the Churn. It's most impressive and you get a sense of the power there.

It's not a thing to be taken lightly. One can go down there; there's nobody to stop you, but it's terribly easy to get yourself messed up permanently. Not long after we visited a vacationer from Walnut Creek, California decided to explore up toward the end of the chute and lost his life after slipping and falling because of a split second's inattention. Best to stay back and take pictures, I think. 

On a more cheerful level, this was something of a peak experience for the Brown Eyed Girl. She comes from a long line of women who have had a long operating love affair with the forces of nature at work, and the crashing of the surf into the end of the channel has always had a special allure for her. She could gaze at this particular place for hours, entranced by the natural power at work here and I, taking my cue from her reverence, began to listen for the heartbeat of nature here both aurally and visually. 

As a girl, she was beholden to the whims and plans of adults as to how she came here and how long they stayed. This day, she was in the pilots' seat, and she said when we came and when we went. I was along for the ride at this point, and that was fine with me, because she was sharing this dear and mighty thing that was so very special to her. The drive back north - this was as far south as we were destined to go on this visit - created a vivid memory, one I'll never forget, of a placid happiness that was quite unique. 

That of reaching out to grab something of great value, holding on to it until one is ready to let go, and not before, and not on anyone else's word. 

The day-use area, a bit of which is pictured here above, is well-kept and comfortable even if you're just stopping by for a short visit. There's an adjacent RV parking area which you can use overnight for dropping a small bit of cash into the collection box, which we did, because why not? The place gave us both a dear memory that'll last the rest of our collective lives, and that's worth something, and a few bucks to help the cause is a minuscule price to pay for that.

The experience and memory is something that one doesn't think they'll discover after more than 30 years as part of a couple: a new shared experience that lines up next to the mileposts that one passed when one was part of a new couple. 

It's part of how those who are lucky enough to grow aged keep a little bit of youth along for the ride. That's worth it. 

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 24: The Yaquina Bay Bridge

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Bayside cities are defined by their bridges. Newport hit the lottery jackpot here.

Carrying US 101 over the mouth of Yaquina Bay, the bridge could be iconic of the general design of almost all notable coastal bridges: the arches, the combination of Art Deco and Art Moderne design motifs, the simple efficiency and the understated yet remarkable beauty. All these were the design gifts of the vision of Conde McCulloch, who came to Oregon in the early part of the 20th Century.

This bridge was built across the mouth of Yaquina Bay in 1936, and I am stupid in love with it.

Connecting the bluff of the town area of Newport with the flats of South Beach, it has only two lanes, which undoubtedly gets kind of awkward during rush hours in Newport; the highway north of the bridge is four lanes of arterial boulevard. 

I imagine they'll eventually, sooner rather than later, have to replace this bridge. That'll be kind of a sad thing, because it's beautiful in its geometric perfection. 

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 23: Meeting Claire Hall

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This was a unique high-point on the trip.

Some of you, I hope, may have heard of Claire Hall. She's a county commissioner down in Lincoln County and someone I rather admire. A few years back she wrote a delightful, uniquely-Oregonesque political fantasy called McCallandia, which is an alternative history of of the post-Watergate years. The point of departure was when Gerald Ford was elevated to the vice-presidency; what if, instead of Ford, lawmakers chose our legendary governor, Tom McCall? The story told was full-on Oregon, her read of McCall's personality was flawless, and the writing impressively accomplished. Not only did Ken Kesey make an appearance, but so did James Cloutier's cartoon character Hugh Wetshoe (via illustration). The work was made tour de force by a chapter perfectly pastiching a Rolling Stone article where Hunter S. Thompson went out to the McCall ranch to do some fishing and shooting.

McCallandia is required reading for any of you who want to know why McCall is such a beloved memory here in Oregon. It ought to have taken the state by storm, truly, and I'll go to my grave telling people to get a copy. McCall's legacy not only informs Oregon's environmental laws and legacy it also influenced Claire's career; just like McCall, she followed a career as a reporter into a greater legacy as an elected official doing the very best she can for all she works for.

How could I not admire someone who was inspired by Tom McCall and who made that love of their community real by serving?

A few days previous I messaged her to see if she wouldn't mind saying 'hi' in person and I was delighted to see her say yes; so it was, this day, in Newport, at the Fred Meyer, we met in person over coffee.

I must say I had a fine time getting to know her, as much as the occasion allowed, in person. You people in Lincoln County, you're lucky to have her during these times of great dexterity and Covid and things of that nature. She's smart and bright and kind and I'm just thrilled that anyone who writes that well can be a friend of mine. 

Thanks, Claire. You're one-of-a-kind. 

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 21: Yaquina Head and the Surf

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The thing about driving 101 down the central Oregon Coast ... Lincoln City to Yachats ... is that so much of the beach is visible from the road. It seems less so in other areas;

The stretch of 101 in Tillamook County, for example, after you get past Neahkanie Mountain, Tillamook Bay, and Tillamook dances about inland a few miles. You're still down on the coast, but you feel as though you're inland. Not that it's a bad trip, mind. But there's not really any ocean to look at from the car. Once you pass Neskowin and get south of the Hwy 18 tie-in, bop around in the hills just north of Lincoln City then once you're in L.C. you can see the ocean from nearly the entire road. 

You can glimpse some of the coastal mist near 101 and 18; that's the floodplain of the Salmon River, opening up to the sea. 

Then, after this, there are great stretches of 101 that are within sight and sound of the sea. And once you get along Beverly Beach, just north of the Newport city limits, you get some of the best angles.

That promontory ahead is a point called Yaquina Head and it's basically the north end of the city of Newport, one of my favorite places on earth. They have a cute little neighborhood there and tidepools (not this time, but again) and theres the working lighthouse out there.

And all the breakers. This is another picture I can hear. And so very typical of US 101 in Lincoln County.