People told us that as we got to the Coast of California and Oregon it would become increasingly difficult for us to find places to stay. “They’d be booked up” they all said. That is starting to be the case, most assuredly on the weekends. We’re seeing that for sure. The great weather up here in the Northwest that they get during July and August makes for a very short window to compete with vacationers and other road warriors like us. We decided, though, that whenever possible we would still just go for it and try to find places as we travel. This is such a time. As we drove up Highway 101 we began calling ahead to campgrounds we could see on our Allstays app. One after the other, they were booked. We kept driving and we kept calling. Finally we found a county park and since we have had some decent experiences in county parks we booked a spot with electricity and water. The 50 Amp vision Quest was working! However, when we arrived we found that it was a nice enough park, but it was very crowded with RV’s on top of one another. We looked around the park and lo and behold we found some great spots right on the ocean, but they didn’t have amenities, just places to park with a picnic bench. No matter, we took them and canceled out other reservations. What a terrific spot.
The beach here in Garibaldi is an unbroken string stretching for several miles. There is a long boulder jetty here that guards a harbor and serves as the gateway to the ocean from the marina. At the end of the marina is an automated lighthouse with a mid range foghorns that sound every 30 seconds. Though not entirely romantic, it serves it purpose and really doesn’t intrude on your ocean experience. You find yourself hearing it every so often rather than constantly. It was kind of cool, actually. The breeze from the ocean was bracing if not chilly at times, mostly at night. The temperatures never really got over 70 degrees the entire time we were here due to that upwelling of deep, cold water off the coast and the near constant breeze. As the rest of the country sweltered under a huge dome of insanely hot weather, and Paris boiled over with temps of 109 degrees, we relished in the inspirational coolness and salt air. The pounding of the waves rocking us to sleep each night.
Our new friends from Arizona, Cindy and Dusty arrived a day after we did based on our recommendations we sent them via text. They parked next to us and we had a great time cooking alternate dinners for each other. One particular memorable evening we took a walk out on the jetty to witness one of the most beautiful sunsets we had ever seen...at least since we left Arizona. I have to say that AZ is the king of the sunset states. But this sunset was spectacular. Rapturous gold tones were replaced by garnet tinged skies and reflecting seas, which were replaced by the brightest oranges you can imagine. It seemed as if a train of sunsets, each more interesting and spellbinding than the last had pulled into our station.
One day Dusty and I decided to go Blueberry picking at an organic farm he had spotted earlier down the road and somewhat inland. My God what a find! Set amongst the green rolling hills of the coast mountains lay this old time farm complete with the perfect farmhouse and now near extinct barn style that we used to see so much back in the 60’s. The berries were plentiful and sweeter on the tops of the bushes and more tart towards the bottom. We picked an entire bucket full and stuffed the luscious blues into our mouths as we picked. Have mercy… I recall my dad telling me that blueberries were his favorite fruit. He said he loved to eat them with cream. Trouble was, cream was too expensive in our household so he substituted Milnot canned milk, a sort of sweetened condensed milk that he used for his morning coffee. In those days we never saw blueberries at the store very often, and when we did it was a real luxury...one that my dad would afford even when we couldn’t have real milk or ice cream due to budgets. Blackberries grow wild in huge great rows around here. Right now they are not ripe, but they’re coming soon. As for me, I love blueberries. It just may be God’s most sublime creation, that little berry so rare and delicate.
Our last day we decided to try crabbing. This is crab country if nothing else. Each wave that tickles the shore brings literally scads of crab shells, broken and scattered. Whether their natural enemies have been reduced by over harvesting, or the conditions for their well being are so perfect here that they grow and reproduce almost exponentially, I do not know. But they are abundant. We scrambled over the huge boulders of the jetty as best we could without falling and breaking something and set up our mini afternoon fish camp. We used these small entanglements that you place your stinking bait into. When the crab amble on over for a bite of the fish carcass that they smell they get caught up in the mono filament nooses that encircle the bait box. You pitch that contraption as best you can where you think a crab might live (as if there is anyplace they don’t live out here) and when you think there might be a hungry crab caught up in the noose you pull the line in. It takes a little time to get the “feel” for when a crab is on there, but I managed to do it in short order. The trick I found is to watch your line and when you see it “walking” or moving along the bottom, yank up hard so as to pull the noose quickly around the crabs leg or pincer and then reel for all your worth to keep the devils from grabbing on to something to get away. This self same technique worked really well for me and I was pulling the junior monsters up on nearly every try.
Today, we threw them all back. It was our last night and we weren’t prepared to clean and cook them properly. It was just as well. After an hour or so Diane began to feel week and unstable. All of a sudden she couldn’t walk. It seemed like a combination of her vertigo, which acts up now and then, being a little dehydrated, and the local bud she had smoked. Whatever the root cause, we had to near carry her off the jetty until we could get back home to the beach and place here on her back to recuperate. Fortunately she was able to recover fully within about an hour or so. It was a scare for her... and me, though. Thank goodness Dusty was along since I don’t think I could have retrieved Diane from the jetty by myself. It was hard enough just getting myself off those jagged boulders. Let it never be said that Diane is anything but a trooper of the first order. She is as gamer…