Another beautiful sunny day greeted us as we woke up this morning. Since we are familiar with this area (I lived here for 10 years and Peggy for 21) we started out the day with breakfast at Kozy Kitchen. They make great breakfasts here but their chicken fried steak and eggs is not as good as Dean’s in Clackamas or Jake’s in Bend. Nevertheless, their food is tip-top and the prices very reasonable.
We then followed up with some tasks we needed to address like purchasing propane, tobacco, getting the mud washed off Charlotte and fueling up her tanks. Then we headed up to Main Rock Products where most of Peggy’s family either works or hangs out. We were careful not to give anybody notice that we had arrived in town until our chores were finished because they sometimes have agendas when we visit and we are woefully ignorant of others’ desires when here. We hung around at the old rock quarry for more than enough time to completely cover our newly washed truck with a substantial layer of rock dust before departing back toward our camp spot.
We took the long way back to our spot, stopping on the way to get Peg some woolly socks because she says her feet are cold sometimes. We took the long way through North Bend past the dinky airport emerging in the Empire district where Peg had me stop at a bakery for some bread and a gooey cinnamon roll. We intentionally missed the road back to Bastendorff Beach and continued down the coast to the Cape Arago lighthouse and on to Cape Arago itself where the road craps out. The ocean and forest views were gorgeous.
We ended up going back to the trailer to do old folks stuff like urinating and reading but along about 7:00 we headed back south on the coast road to an overlook entitled Simpson Reef for the sunset. Although the sunset was gorgeous, we were also treated to views of offshore gray whales along with seals, harbor seals and elephant seals hauled out onto the rocks at the reef. They were frolicking in the water, making noisy barking and growling sounds easily audible from the shore. We also spotted what we think was a night heron perched on one of the rock pinnacles. He was quite handsome. The view in the afternoon from this overlook is magnificent.
Photos are available if you click here