Yachats (Cape Perpetua)
I started stopping at every State Park and National Forest Service Park near Newport to find a suitable placed to spend the night. I was past Yachats before I found anything. These are the Oregon State Parks I remember. All the sites are close together with no barrier between you an your neighbor. One park went so far as to mark spots in the parking lot along the sea wall for RVs to park. There was absolutely no view of the ocean even though the park was on a beach.
I subconsciously have something against the Lincoln City/ Newport area of the coast. They are not the quaint little tourist towns like Ocean Shores or Seaside. Maybe its just me, but I don't have any desire to stay in that area.
Around 5:40 pm, I pulled in to Cape Perpetua campground, a National Forest Service park run by a contractor named "Leisure Time International." There were 38 tent spots along a small creek with good forest coverage. The sound of the babbling brook replaced the roar of the ocean as the dominant background noise. I chose the spot next to the caretaker and set up my tent. The caretaker had an older model trailer, but there was no motorized vehicle in his spot.
I had not been in a good mood the entire drive that day and was not looking forward to another dinner of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and trail mikx, so I decided to drive the two miles back to Yachats to look for dinner.
I found a little crab and chowder place and had a good meal of clam chowder and fish and chips. Even though it was the least expensive item on the menu, it would have put me in PB&J and trail mix for a month. I guess I am overly worried about touching my new nest egg. I have allotted so much mone yfor my sabbattical and certain expenses keep coming up to whittle away at how long I can keep this up. On the other hand my nest egg (separate from this trip alottment) is an artificially imposed restriction and has risen over what I had originally thought it would be. Those of you familiar with the Albert Brooks movie on nest eggs know what I am talking about (I believe it was called "Lost In America" and parallels my situation).
Across the street I saw a little gift shop with a computer printed banner reading "Email, Copy, Fax." I went over to inquire of the services to see if I could use them to upload my journal entries. A sassy elderly lady (ala Ruth Gordon from "Every Which Way But Loose") was running the show. I asked if I could use a floppy to upload files, "Why not?" she asked. "Is it going to crash it?" She then proceeded to tell me a story of some folks who put a CD of vacatgion pictures in the computer and crashed her machine for a couple of days. I decided the facilities would not do as I still have the problem of needing to be logged into AOL under my name to upload.
Back at camp by 7pm I had the fire going and was settling in to continue reading "The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick Volume 5." Finally some peace and quiet and a chance to let myself relax. Just then the caretaker pulled up in his suburban. He was one of those "Howdy Ho Neighbor" oldtimers that liked to talk. He came by and told me more than I wanted to know about the park and his life and I went back to reading Dick. A few minutes later he was back just passing by on his way to the dumpster with an empty trash can to give me more information.
The rest of the night was spent peacefully reading by the fire while the babbling brook and whistling birds eased my mind. The next morning I was up and had the tent packed by 8:30 am. I decided to hike the Saint Perpetua trail to the top of Cape Perpetua. A short detour on the trail took me to the visitors center where I obtained a map. The trail was 3 miles round trip, well-designed and well maintained. I ascended about 800 feet and never felt like I had a wasted step the trail was so nice. Even though the day was overcast I could see many miles out to see and look down on the rocky coast below.
By 11am I was back on the road. I could not recall ever visiting the Coos Bay/ North Bend area so chose Sunset Bay State Park as my next destination. A decision I would later regret.