Bandon, OR to Lincoln City, OR

Outside the Laundromat

4/29

Bandon, OR to Lincoln City, OR

Today was laundry day. After hurriedly packing the car, we drove to the local Laundromat in Bandon. While drying our loads of laundry, a bedraggled man with a long board and large backpack entered the ‘mat’. He was soaked to the bone and talking to his girlfriend (or wife, I’m not sure) on the phone about how he had spent the last night camping in the rain and was pretty sure he had lost his charger to his phone. As he unpacked his backpack, I noticed that he seemed packed for a trek. His name is Ruben Duran, and he and his brother are long boarding across America to New York to raise money for the No Kid Hungry Campaign. This is their website, feel free to check them out on Facebook as well, as they continue to post progress pictures and status updates. After talking to Ruben for awhile we left him drying his clothes and set out north.

Lunar Snowscape

We took a break at Cummins Creek, where a lovely forest stood atop jutting cliffs. The trees here all grow back into the hillside, the wind effecting their growth so much that they grow away from the light. Some look like lean-tos, the angle of their trunks going from straight to a 45 degree angle.  

One of my favorite stops today was at Cape Perpetua. Just the name to me seems epic and ominous. This area lives up to its name; it is in a perpetual state of motion and ferocity. One of the features of Cape Perpetua is called The Spouting Horn or Thor’s Well where the
 ocean meets this black, volcanic rock at various angles and water shoots 30 feet into the air in a massive wave. Thor’s Well has been called the Pacific Gate to the Underworld, though I’d think they are mixing Norse and Greek mythology there. In any case, when the tide is right, you get an effect like this. I was not that lucky, and left without a shot of the massive fountain.

Crow over Devil's Churn

A different feature, called the Devil’s Churn, is a long narrow canyon in the same black rock that extends into the cliff about 700 yards, slowing narrowing as it goes. Here the water continuously moves and churns as waves inundate the rocks.

Another great town that we stopped in was Florence, OR. This town, another fishing town on a bay, has a great bridge into the town. Most of the bridges that we have crossed have beautiful art deco features; capped towers on all four corners, steel girders with small embellishments, overall very graceful.

Cape Perpetua

Our evening ended in Lincoln City, were we found an amazing view from our hotel balcony. As the misty rain rolled in, we watched in the relative comfort of three walls and a roof. Seagulls played in the stream that dead ended into the ocean as the sun set dramatically over clouds.