Why do we love Oregon coast...

…cause there’s no doubt we do love it. It’s one of the most friendly places we’ve been to. And there are a few reasons for that. Here are the most important ones:

Views. Going from south we took our favorite highway, "101". For a long time the views reminded us of those on "one" in Big Sur area. Road is less winding and it’s not on the edge of the mountain but still takes turns, goes up just to go down around the corner. On top of that there are very green woods, first sequoias and then cedars. Blue west of the road is still inaccessible, most of the time, as there are no real beaches, but there are trails leading to view points from which we saw majestic rocks sticking out of the ocean.

Further north, the road gets easier, it also gets greener, hills are lower and there are more and more sandy beaches and meadows full of cows. There are some rocks sticking out of water but more and more often the information on the viewpoints explains what kinds of birds you can see around. There are also more and more towns - sleepy, wooden fishermen villages with drive-thru coffee places, fish restaurants and shops with shells and myrtlewood souvenirs. People who in Poland leave everything and move to Bieszczady mountains here would probably move to Oregon … 

Bridges. We find American bridges amazing, and here there are so many of them that we can be amazed few times a day. Many of them were built in 1920s and 1930s . Most of those on "101" were designed by Conde B. McCullough. He was quite an efficient engineer as he left over 600 of bridges. The ones on "101" are either concrete arches or metal crates, now painted green which reminded us of a bridge we live next to in Warsaw. McCullough’s Bridges are cold and rough but they suit the Oregon landscape perfectly. We didn’t - unfortunately - go further east to central Oregon, where there are a few covered wooden bridges. Hopefully next time. There are about thirty of them left.

Lighthouses. There are lots of them and all are pretty. On the entire Oregon cost there are sixteen of them open to public. Plus private one on a lonely rock that can be seen from land. Owner made a … cemetery out of it. For only 1-5 thousand dollars you can leave your ashes there. It’s quite popular and there are only 350 spaces left. On the other hand it’s an offshore lighthouse and it sometimes disappears under the waves. Well, whatever makes you happy…

The tallest lighthouse at Oregon coast
(Yaquina Head Lighthouse)

For sure the lighthouses are charming. They were built between 1870 and 1896. Some of them served until 1960s when they were replaced by modern technology. Later some of them were taken care of and some were waiting to be robbed and destroyed by vandals. Some of them were renovated only less than 20 years ago. They have different owners too. Most of them are on state parks territory but Oregon doesn’t always charge fees. As we are in the USA every lighthouse has to be the most something. Haceta Head Lighthouse is the most photographed lighthouse in the world. We don’t know how they know that, maybe they counted in stocks on Internet, but it’s truth that it has been used by pop culture, for example by Finish Eurovision winner Lordi ("The Ghost of the Haceta Head"). So it’s a must-see!

The shortest lighthouse at Oregon coast
(Cape Meares Lighthouse)

Sea Lions. Near town called Florence there’s a Sea Lion Cave. The entrance is (if we remember well) 14 USD per adult, but it’s easy to find some discount coupons. We were lucky. On the day we were there it was Cave’s 80th birthday. Not only the entrance fee was the same as 80 years ago, which was 25 cents, but also there was free cake, coffee and wine:)

After paying the entrance fee we went on the wooden boardwalk from which you can see a lot of sea lions swimming joyfully in the ocean below, to the elevator built in 1961. In 50 seconds the elevator takes us over 180 feet down to the cave. From there we saw more sea lions swimming around, laying on the rocks and making funny noises. It stinks a bit but we liked it anyway. Besides from the other side of the cave you can see a lighthouse we mentioned earlier, so it’s two birds with one stone.

 Haceta Head Lighthouse

Whales. They pass by twice a year and they say it’s easy to spot them. We didn’t. Some guy took a photo of a couple of them half a minute before we got to where he was. He also said a day before he had seen five of them. End of April is not the best time. If you want to see migrating whales come in March, just don’t forget to get dressed warm. 

Whales migrate this way

No Sales Tax. How nice it is to pay exactly the amount on a price tag… Oregon evens up for a (relatively) high income tax, but we don’t care for that. As our hostesses from Florence said Oregon will not get sales tax any time soon, as it has to be approved in popular vote… Surprise, surprise, but that is what happens when you ask people whether they want to pay taxes.

Wine and cheese. Wineries go all the way from California up to Washington state (although coffee is more popular there). Cheese joins wine in northern Oregon in small town called Tillamook, where there are cows everywhere and air smells of cows‘ poop. Oh well, that’s the price… Tillamook is a regional cheese center, there are two factories open to public: Blue Heron, with a better cheese (maybe because they have brie), less people, cozy coffee place and it’s nicer in general. The other one, Tillamook Cheese Factory is a real institution and a pride of Oregon, although looking at the guests it’s a cheaper kind of entertainment. Cheese (cheddar) is worse (in our opinion) than in Blue Heron, crowd of people, but they have really good ice cream and you can see how the cheese is made - both on the movie and from special view point. There is also an exhibition about history of region and cheese production.

People. Everyone is nice. Yes, we did write it many times before, people in States are nice, but here they are super nice. Our first meeting with Oregonian was in not very fortunate situation. On the parking lot by the tallest bridge in Oregon our car wouldn’t start (yes, we know, we promised we wouldn’t write about the car again, we hope now it’s a real last time … inshallah;) Deputy sheriff from Curry County, very nice guy named Joel, was passing by. He saw us and stopped to help, he spent lots of time with us trying to figure out what’s wrong with a car, making a few phone calls, recommending a local shop and promising that if we didn’t have to stay in the shop overnight he would not notice illegally parked trailer.

Luckily a shop in Gold Beach recommended by Joel needed just couple of hours to fix the problem. The connection on the starter was broken. We even thought about it ourselves (or actually with a help of some nice Canadian guy). They replaced it, added some water to washer fluid container (we ran out and as we are oversensitive lately every single peep meaning “washer fluid down” was putting us on the edge of heart attack), they checked few more things and on the same day we got to our new boondocking hosts. Hostesses actually - Jodi and Milly. 

Milly with Kalina

This another great boondocking experience reminded us of Linn and Lynn from Louisiana, who originally are from – surprise surprise – Oregon! Jodi and Milly met in … Texan prison. But no, they did not share a cell. They both worked there. Jodi in the office and Milly (after her husband’s death had to take whatever there was to support her three kids) as a prison guard. After they retires they travelled a bit and then bought a small house in old rv park which is now a nice residential area.

Jodie 

Jodi is now retired but she works as a president of the park, Milly works in nearby supermarket. Additionally they both volunteer patrolling the area with Oregon police, and in free time they ride recumbent trikes which we borrowed for a few hours (and which Ola absolutely loved and even had an idea for our next adventure). 

Jodi and Milly are completely different. Jodi is joyful, outgoing and optimistic, helping everyone around, giving away things to people in need, and even though she broke her hip some time ago she is planning a journey on trike across the US. Milly is much quieter and more introvert. Her mother is Polish and when we were talking about our country (like about that Poles are not too happy and they are aggressive because there is no sun for seven months during the year, as one rockman sings) we figured out together that it’s all in genes. Despite the differences they are perfect roommates and they treated us like family. They took care of kids, they cooked for us (and we cooked for them) and we spent long hours talking. We planned to stay there two nights, we ended up staying four.

With next boondocking hosts we stayed shorter and talked only one evening, but only because we started running out of time. Sheila and Earl were very interesting couple, she worked in hospitals for many years, he was in the army, they lived in many different places, including a boat in Hawaii. She is originally from San Francisco, he lived for 4 years as a kid … on Alcatraz, where his father worked! He was one of “children of Alcatraz” - it was quite an important part of exhibition we saw on the Rock. How was it? Earl said it was great, like living in a small town but at the same time, just a short ferry ride from San Francisco. With a handful of good advice and some home-made apple sauce we were sad we had to leave so soon.

Sheila and Earl

Weather. Ok, Oregon is not perfect. Most of our stay in Oregon reminded us of our last year’s trip to Polish seaside in May. When all Poland was going through a heat wave the spot on Baltic coast we stayed at had like 5C/42F and terrible wind. But even that can be sold in Oregon as an advantage – it’s advertising itself as a kite and windsurfing capitol of the world. We didn’t try, mostly because when we crossed the dunes and finally saw the beach Maciek said he was cold and wanted to go back. It was really cold…

We left Oregon crossing another amazing bridge, connecting Astoria with Megler, Washington. This one was not designed by McCullough, it was opened in 1960s. It’s the longest crate bridge in North America. It’s over 6.5 km long and it looks like it’s built from a few not matching pieces. It was a nice ending of our Oregon adventure