After spending the last half of Friday through the first half of Sunday
in Medford and Ashland, we headed over to Brookings for a few days. We set up camp at
Harris, then went to
Azalea to eat a picnic lunch and see who'd accept our open invitation to come visit.
Two of these gals (and one of their husbands) spent a few hours with us at KidTown and we walked over to see the other at a softball game. I had a good time reminiscing about the past, talking about the present, and laughing with Mandie, Tiff, and Jamie. (And Johnny, all four of whom were my classmates.)
We got back to the campground just in time to catch the last part of the sunset. So pretty!
Tim and I basked in the romantic glow of the fire back at our site.
Kidding! Campfires aren't allowed right now because everything's too dry, so we were actually in the glow of a battery operated camping light. Whatever works.
Devon and Silas shut the night down playing rat slap together.
Tyler and I were breakfast squatters as we started off day four of our trip.
I lived in Brookings for eleven years, but whether from lack of interest or awareness, my family didn't visit many of the cool spots along the coastline. Tim and Silas had to go home later in the day, so I tried to squeeze in both new and old beaches and trails along the
Samuel H. Boardman Corridor that morning. No real plan. Just drove up the highway a while, then made stops on our way back to camp.
First stop, Arch Rock Viewpoint.
I love finding trees stuck in trees when we're hiking.
Second stop, Thunder Rock Cove & Secret Beach. We had a communication breakdown at a junction, so some of the fam went on the beach trail and others took the viewpoint loop (but joined the beach Ws when they were done). I missed the viewpoint, so I'll have to check it out next time.
Tyler took his shoes off as soon as we hit the beach and exclaimed, "Sand between the toes is so awesome!"
He loves digging hand tunnels!
See Devon up at the top?
Tim looked pretty content.
I love to see things growing on rocks, especially really tall rocks.
Devon and Tyler tried to build a dam.
Looking down on the beach that we'd just spent a lot of time on as we headed back up the trail.
Third stop, Cape Ferrelo Viewpoint.
Fourth stop, Lone Ranch Beach.
We hung out here for quite a while, then went back to our campsite. Tim and Silas loaded up their stuff, then we stopped by
Semi Aquatic, one of our favorite shops, for various Ws who wanted to do some shopping there. Next stop?
Pizza Deli for a late, gluttonous lunch. Their taco pizza is one of my favorite pizzas ever!
The only proof all 6 Ws were in town together is this picture taken after lunch with harsh lighting and tipped heads as the two adult guys headed back home to work. Such is life.
Not pictured from the first half of the day? The two times I succumbed to tears. Some road trip moments are better than others, and the less awesome ones are better left off the camera.
Tim and Silas bailed at this point and the rest of us ran a couple errands. Visited Goodwill in hopes I'd find a hoodie from my high school (no such luck), bought ice, and made mandatory stop at
Wildwood: The Shop of Multifarious Goods (splurged on a candle and a super cute, tiny pottery vase).
After eight hours on the go, we all needed some down time. Devon and Tyler hunkered down in what had just changed from the kid tent to the boy tent for a game of cribbage that Devon had just snagged at Goodwill.
Naomi hunkered down in the sun with a book she bought at Goodwill.
I found a spot in the shade and started a library book I'd brought along.
We wanted to climb the butte for the sunset, but the kids also wanted a little time on the beach first. So we did both. Tyler asked me to take a picture of his buried legs.
Arrived at one of my favorite sunset spots just in time for the sun to show through the railing.
We visited with other folks who were up there and had one of them take our picture.
And this is how we ended our jam-packed fourth day on the road. I'll be forever grateful to have grown up with scenes like this being so ordinary that they didn't phase me.
I went to bed that night looking at countless stars in the sky, but woke up on day five to hot wind and high smoke. We weren't anywhere near a fire, but it turns out there there was a major windstorm across the state that blew heat and smoke from existing wildfires our direction.
Thankfully it didn't smell smoky, so we ate breakfast and took off for another day outside. This time the kids requested that we head to the port, so that's where we went. This outing was a lot less hanging out together and much more of people just doing their own thing. You have to look closely, but there are three little Ws in this picture. Naomi had her nose back in her book, Tyler's digging in the sand behind and to the left of her, and Devon was rock hounding behind and to the left of Tyler.
I enjoyed some peaceful time at the beach and unintentionally got proposal jetty in the background of my selfie. (That's not actually the name of it, but it does happen to be where Tim proposed to me a lifetime ago.)
Tyler's wall and keep.
Devon's freehand Calvin.
Life in a coastal town on a smoky day.
There's a little mask you can see floating down in the docks. The only red and black camo mask we could find on Etsy when we all bought masks. We have plenty of generic masts, so life goes on, but it's possible I didn't handle that situation graciously.
By this time the smoke was getting thicker in town. It still looked clear up river, so we went that way. Still smoky, but not as bad. Our plan was to hit
Loeb, but we discovered the whole park was shut down once when we arrived. Next option? Social Security Bar. We had a picnic lunch, skipped rocks, and just hung out for about an hour.
Ready to move on, we went back to our campsite, then down to the beach again. By this time it was quite smoky, but still high enough that it wasn't unpleasant to be out in. It made for some interesting lighting (some of these pictures look smokier than it was because the camera naturally filtered the shots), but the smell wasn't very strong.
A face.
A face attached to a boy who was buried while standing.
A buried boy next to the boy who buried him.
My picture doesn't do the scene justice because the lighting was stunning. There were so many people taking pictures because it was surreal. Just gorgeous!
Right about now is when there started to be a shift in the tone of our trip. Other than hopping on Facebook once a day to upload pictures, I'd stayed offline and unplugged while we were on the road. However, I'd received a message on Monday night, which I didn't see until Tuesday morning, that a friend's grandpa had died. It was an expected loss, but no loss is easy. I did a quick video chat to just check in with my friend and found out there was a fire in the Ashland/Medford area, which is where much of my extended family lives and where we'd just spent two nights. I wasn't worried, though. I mean, it's Oregon. And it's fire season. And I didn't know much more than it was along the freeway.
In the middle of that video chat, I turned around and saw Nancy, someone I've known since I was a kid. Both of us were surprised, so she indicated I should finish my conversation while she went to take pictures of the cool lighting. I hadn't seen her since
my "marking the day" trip more than five years ago, so we visited for a bit before going our separate ways.
I called Tim next, just to check in and see how things were going. During that conversation I got a message from one of Dad's former co-workers asking if he'd evacuated. What in the world? I told her she was the second person in fifteen minutes to mention the fire and that I'd call my dad.
I called. He and Debra had evacuated. Level three, police officers banging on the door kind of evacuation. While I was talking to him, I got a message from another friend asking if I was home yet and if I knew about the new fire. I called, confirmed that I knew and Dad and evacuated. Messaged Tim to let him know about the evacuation, then headed back to our campsite with the kids.
That evening Devon and Tyler taught me how to play cribbage. I'm not a very fast learner, but they were patient and it was fun.
The lack of a campfire makes evenings a little boring, so I hopped online to check hours and told the kids to get in the car. Spontaneous trip to
Slugs 'N Stones for some ice cream and cool mom points before they shut down for the night!
Settled in for the night, I got a message from Natie, offering us a place to stay if we needed to evacuate, as the windstorm had also made fires start raging near Woodburn. She knew Silas and Tim were home, but forgot the rest of us were still on the road. The good news is the wildfires in our area stayed far enough away that our home and family were never in danger. It was phenomenally smoky at home, but otherwise safe. Day five ended with starting to realize the whole state was on fire and that our final day might be too smoky to do anything fun.
I woke up on day six with a message from a friend letting me know that the road we planned on taking home was closed because of a fire. Checked to confirm because we'd been waiting for a whole year to get burgers from
Bobbalou's in Cave Junction on our way home, but this road closure would make that impossible.
Confirmed. Bummer.
I also woke up to ash. So much ash!
Thirty minutes later I got a group message from Dad letting us know
he and Debra's home had burned to the ground, including a picture a friend of his had taken that morning.
I was stunned. Speechless. And then I cried. For quite a while.
My younger step-sister, Ashley, mentioned in the conversation that she suspected her home might also be gone.
Messaged Tim, Silas, and a couple close friends to let them know. Told the kids and said we needed to start packing up because we had no idea what roads were going to be like with fires scattered around the state. They were champs, quickly tearing down tents and loading the van while I was off-kilter.
I'd been mostly unplugged for five days, but day six found my phone about to die because the battery drained as I figured out fire stuff. I turned on the van so it would charge while we tore down our campsite, then Devon rescued me with a battery charging gadget (I'm as techy as I sound) of his own so I could turn the van off. Sometimes it's the little things.
See ya later, smoky beach.
Still pretty, even when the air is chewy.
It was so dark from smoke at 9:30 in the morning that the streetlights were still on. Not as bad as Brookings was during the Chetco Bar Fire a few years earlier, but definitely the worst I've ever experienced there.
This is the face of someone who was grateful for five days of loved ones and outdoor activities, but hadn't showered in four days because C19 killed state park showers (a fact we knew ahead of time), didn't sleep well the previous night because her brain wouldn't shut off once she knew about the fires, and cried all morning because a wildfire uprooted her extended family's life. Emotional roller coaster. Mostly silent passenger for nearly six hours, which says a lot when you know how much I usually talk.
Our trip home was uneventful, which I'm thankful for. We got confirmation shortly after arriving that Ashley's home had burned down, which was obviously hard to hear. So much loss in our family, yet only a small piece of the unfathomable loss the area experienced as small towns were decimated and thousands of homes lost just from that one fire. A crazy 24 hours, to say the least.
The trip didn't end how we expected, and the fire of this year was opposite from the rain we dealt with last year, but I'm still glad for all the loved ones we got to see and the time spent enjoying nature.
