Canfield Travels	Return to HOME page
Summer 2018 #8 August 30, 2018

Along the Oregon Coast

From Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia River as it flows into the Pacific Ocean south to Brookings, where the salmon run up the Chetco River, the 360 mile length of Oregon’s coast is protected public property with numerous wayside stops and state park campgrounds.

With daytime temperatures in the low 70’s and nights in the mid-50’s, except for daily morning fog enshrouding the beaches and seastacks, our walks and explorations along the headlands were a pleasant respite from the high temperatures experienced inland in British Columbia and Washington.

Hard basalt headlands                                                                     Foggy coast

The Yaquina Head Ligthhouse, first illuminated in 1873, at 93 feet is the tallest of nine lighthouses aiding navigation along the Oregon Coast.

Safe nesting rock                                                    Common Murres and Cormorants

|                                                                               Double click to play this movie

Foggy Beach and Seastacks                                               Isolated beach at our campground

The Darlingtonia Calfironia, also known as cobra-lily, an unusual plant which, like our eastern Pitcherplant, traps and digests insects, grows in bogs ranging from an elevation of 6000 feet to sea level.

Cobra-lily, Bloom in May or June

Each day we repeatedly pass Tsumami Hazard Area warning signs along low lying sections of the coastal highway in both Oregon and California. Caused by great undersea earthquakes along a fault zone 32 to 70 miles off shore, these devastating waves could strike the coast at any time. Numerous evacuation signs lead inland and uphill to safety.

Warning signs                                                                                Fault lines

 
Historic Aircraft Museum

We detoured inland for one day to McMinnville to tour the Evergreen Museum Campus. With two high hangars, this museum is home to Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose and a collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft. At this museum we also enjoyed “The Jet Pilot”, a movie which followed the training of a squadron of pilots during simulated war games. Fortunately for our stomachs this movie was not in 3-D but it was still very exciting.

Even though this area is Oregon wine country, we completed the days activities with a visit to the Golden Valley Brewery in the historic downtown for a sampling of their craft beers.

Spruce Goose cockpit                                                     Fuselage of the “Flying Boat”

Northern California Coast

Redwood National and State Parks

 The Coast Redwood (sequoia sempervirens) is the tallest tree in the world with height to 379 feet and base diameter to 26 feet. Heavy winter rains and daily fog from the Pacific Ocean keep the tree and giant ferns continually damp, even during summer droughts. The trees grow from a seed the size of a tomato seed or sprout from the base of a weakened parent tree. By comparison, the giant sequoia (sequoiadendron giganteum), grows on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains in central California, with height to 314 feet and base diameter to 30 feet.

Campsite in the Redwoods                                                      Redwood cut down in the 1920’s

Big Tree – about 1500 years old                                                 Corkscrew Redwood

New growth on “Nurse Trees”

We feel very small among these giants

Sampling the Fruits of Nature

It was blackberry season along the western coast so our walks included picking and eating these very sweet berries. Of course we did leave lots of ripe berries for the bears.

How many blackberries do you think did this bear needed to eat to make this pile?

Turning East

Time now to move inland to the Napa Valley for a few days of wine tasting.  Hopefully we will avoid the smoke drifting from the numerous wildfires in central California.