Today we started out at our spot at Bastendorff Beach and drove into the adjacent community of North Bend to meet Peggy’s sister, Tony, at the Kozy Kitchen. They had not seen each other in a while so breakfast took about an hour and a half before we took off for a local drive.
We started by heading south on 101 to OR-42 which wanders through the hills ultimately arriving in Roseburg way over on I-5. We only followed 42 to a spot between Coquille, the county seat, and Myrtle Point, affectionately known to most locals as Myrtle Penis.
We turned east on Lee Valley Road which we followed a couple miles to another quarry of the Main family’s. There we found another of Peggy’s sisters, Chrissie, who is the sole person at that location. She hangs out in a dinky little shed there and fills the aggregate needs of folks from that part of the world. After some extended hobnobbing, we headed back north on 42 toward Coos Bay until we turned west on North Bank Road which winds down the north shore of the Coquille River.
The predominant color here is bright green. They have received a lot of rain recently so all the plant life is open for business. About 10 miles down this road we turned off at the Bandon wayside of the Bandon Marsh NWR where we spotted many aquatic birds busily spearing prey in the grassy swamp in front of us. We also spotted an adolescent hawk that we startled and he gave us a great aerobatic display before drifting out of sight.
Shortly thereafter our road terminated at 101 where we turned north about 100 yards before hanging a left out to a state park called Bullard’s Beach. They have a nifty campground here but it has very few spaces big enough for our trailer. There is also a road here that goes beyond the campground for a couple miles before ending at the Coquille River Light where we strolled around and photographed stuff. We noted from our vantage point at the lighthouse that there were some enormous rock formations off the coast on the south side of the river so we went looking for them.
After winding through a bunch of Bandon streets, we found our way out to the coast where we found the rocks are actually part of a reserve called “Oregon Offshore Islands Refuge” or something and that someone had the smarts to set this little stretch of rocks aside for the future. They are impressive ocean rock formations with dramatic wave actions and hordes of sea birds. There must have been something tasty in the water because the seagulls were mobbing a section of the water with very little respect for other members of their flock.
We had pretty much run out of time so we took the long drive from Bandon up to the Main Rock pit north of Coos Bay to dine with Tony again. I probably ate too much. here
A few pix are available if you click the word “here” clumsily placed at the end of the above paragraph.