Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
That time of year, I suppose
It’s September, but here in Bake-o it feels like the middle of summer. And I keep thinking about how, before Karen broke her hip a few years ago, we used to take a summer drive up the Oregon coast. It must be the time of year, but I keep remembering those drives. How on the last drive we made it as far as Newport Oregon, and stayed at an ocean front hotel that had a jellyfish tank in the lobby, and how very pleasant our stay was, and how I thought, “It’s really not that much trouble to get away. This is nice enough, we ought to do this two or three times a year.”
I think that was in 2006, maybe even 2005.
These memories assault me unbidden:
There’s an old guy, in Bandon I think, with a model train collection. He lets people visit but he takes a dim view of children — he watched Jake with a steady intent that was nearly insulting. (Yes, he doesn’t know our son, doesn’t know that Jake is not and has never been a destructive force of nature. Not like some boys.)
There’s a place in Newport where you can paint pottery and get it glazed and fired. We had them mail us a bunch of pieces . . . most were broken when they arrived, but we still have the salad bowl.
South of Newport, there’s a sushi place we’ve been to twice. Last time, they made us wait two hours for our food. They were able to keep Jake (who was quite young at the time . . . six or seven?) well supplied with tofu, but it was still a grueling wait. The kid was great, never kvetched, just played with his toys and ate his tofu.
I keep thinking about the Newport Aquarium, which I think is better than the Monterey Bay Aquarium — every bit as nice but half as crowded. Recently, unpacking, I found a stuffed animal from our last trip. An octopus.
We’ve been to the Oregon Seal Caves twice, I think. Always impressive — both as a geological formation (I think it’s one of the largest sea caves anywhere) and as a noise/stench. Lots of seals or sea lions or whatever. Noisy buggers.
I miss these trips up the coast. I miss the silly dinosaur park north of Gold Beach, the place with the giant cabbages. (The cabbages are real. The dinosaurs are fake.) I miss the petting zoo in Bandon, where my young son had a penchant for taking pictures of animal poops. It’s one of the biggest petting zoos in the world, by the way, and if you have young children, it’s a reason unto itself to make the trip to the Oregon coast.
I miss the coast itself. It’s indescribably beautiful, especially the stretch from Gold Beach to Port Orford. I miss hiking with my son along the coastal trail. They seemed like such boring hikes back then, but now my heart aches for them.
More than anything else, though, I miss traveling as a family. We do a lot less of it nowadays, since Karen doesn’t travel well.
And I keep thinking about the ocean, and the wind in Bandon, and Ripley’s Believe It Or Not in Newport, and Yachats (which is just a fun name to say), and all the bridges large and small we cross on our journey north, and the little hotels and tiny towns and restaurants, some gems, some crap, always a surprise.
I’m an odd bird. I was restless after ten years in one place, and yet I dislike change, too. I guess some losses take a while to register.
D.
I love the Oregon Coast. My family used to drive it every Spring Break when I was in high school. We never went to the aquarium, but the sea lion caves were a must-see, and the sand dunes in Florence. We used to stay at the Adobe Inn, near Yachats (yup, still not tired of saying that!) And Bandon is gorgeous. Dean and I thought about taking the kids this summer (just as well we didn’t plan it, given how the summer turned out) and it’s right up near the top of our Places to Visit list.
How DO you say ‘Yachats’? My guess would be… hell, I don’t even have a guess. I have no clue how to say that.
But oh, I agree. I agree with this poast. September is my favourite month, I think. I love the crispness of the mornings, the mellow punch of the sun, the sense of autumn closing in. September is a month for reflection and remembering.
I’m not sure how the natives pronounce it, but I always made the ‘ch’ very guttural, and tried to spray the car’s windshield with as much saliva as possible 🙂
And if we go to the Oregon Coast, we’ll have to try to get down to Bakersfield so that I can drive through it early Sunday morning while listening to gospel music on the coloured radio station.
Oy, that’s a long shlep you’re talking about. The trip from Southern Oregon down to San Francisco is not without merit, thanks to all the redwoods, and I suppose the coastal drive from SF south to Santa Barbara has lots of attractions, too, but you really are talking about a LONG drive. But if you’ve never seen Hearst Castle or Big Sur, it could be worth it. And Monterey is drop dead beautiful, too.
That drive down the central valley of California, though . . . snore. Be sure to dose up on caffeine.
I believe the native pronunciation is much easier on your windshield: ya-HOTS. Although it’d be fairly easy to work a nice guttural into the middle of that, too.