We have been fooling around in the Pacific Northwest since May. During a substantial part of the time, there has been smoke in our environment sometimes obscuring our views and almost always clogging our lungs. 2017 has been a horrible year for fires in British Columbia, Washington and Oregon and a persistent high pressure weather pattern has kept the smoke marching toward the sea. High heat cowards that we are, we have kept to the west side of the Cascades and, for the most part, have avoided the high temperatures that now plague almost the entire Pacific time zone.
Despite staying in hot scaredy-cat appreciation regions like Puget Sound and the Willamette Valley, we have still encountered stifling high temperatures and gray stinky skies. That may have come to an end today. When we arrived in Bandon the day before yesterday, the temperature was a reasonable mid-70s but smoke still obscured the sun or made it look like a spiffy fuschia orb. Yesterday, the smoke was almost completely cleared by some refreshing onshore breezes but it was still overcast except at the beach, where it was foggy.
Today we awoke to overcast skies, mid-60s temperatures and very light breezes until about noon when there was a sudden and pronounced darkening of the skies. Being a circadian type, I immediately headed for the crapper for some important business. Minutes later, it started to rain torrentially and not two minutes later the entire trailer interior was filled with a dazzling white light instantly followed by a very impressive roar that sent Peggy darting across the trailer. I thought, momentarily, that she was going to join me in our electrical panel-sized toilet enclosure. Peggy is not real skookum on electrical storms.
For the next hour, the storm raged. Brilliant flashes of light illuminated the otherwise dark and dreary skies. Huge blasts of thunder gave the impression that the sky itself was being ripped apart. It was great, from my standpoint. I am a big probability and statistics believer and have always assumed that lightning must strike somewhere but this is a big planet and there are plenty of places I am not where jagged arcs of lightning can go to ground, leaving me unscathed. Peggy has different beliefs. I still love her.
The rain and fog continued for the rest of the afternoon. We left the campground about 2:00 PM and headed to the Bandon Baking Company which is exactly the kind of place we should not visit. Peggy went in and bought some things we shouldn’t eat. From there, we headed down the coast, chewing and checking out all the state and county parks lining the Pacific. The scenery was gorgeous but most of the government parks were pretty full; many folks living in nearby communities have been evacuated due to recent fires and have retreated into the parks. We also checked out some private parks and they are also busy, despite the reduction in occupancy during normal years encountered during the fall. Maybe when we pass through this area in a week or two, space will be available for two ancients with a big trailer. We only went south as far as Port Orford, so we did not check out any Rogue River camping locations. I hope that part of the world has not burned in this year’s horrible fires because the places we have stayed up the Rogue previously were gorgeous.
We got a few pictures along the way. Click here