driftwood forest (excerpt of third book)

As it turned out, I took two adventures on the Saturday of my bike ride with Kaleb to New Highway 20. I went downtown for coffee and texted Dan that I was available; Dan then met me at a coffee shop thirty minutes later. Dan rolled by and hollered. I was seated away from the road, gawking at the sun on the side of a brick building. He drove a white truck from the late nineties that had a leaky canopy. I sat forward and spun. Dan had on sunglasses and looked like he was cruising on the day like a feather in the wind.

My plan with Dan was an adventure I wanted to have since years before. After my tour on the road that Fog on Fire chronicled, I thought of the places I had gone like badges. One badge I still needed was the second part of an educated guess and investigation about what I hoped to identify as the sweet spot of America in the succulent Pacific Northwest.

There were a series of three small towns that were east from the coast at the lower middle half of the state that I circled on a map as my best guesses to be the sweet spot of the PNW. That place would have rich soil, potential for economy, a cozy neighborhood, and would be full of beautiful spots to explore. When I approached the row of towns, I found them to be out of shape and a disappointment for what I had expected the area to behold.

My best memory in the area was selling a bowl pack of weed to motorcyclists on a tour from Canada. Not the sale, but their open interaction fused to my joy of sharing one of my favorite parts of life was what stuck.

While with Dan on that Saturday afternoon, he and I headed for an unchartered section to me of map that could be what I would appreciate after maturity as the most beautiful part of America. We set out on a loop of road that went southwest from Corvallis through a valley of the lower coast range to a town on the coast I hadn’t yet explored, Yachats, Oregon. He had exceptional spots of adventure in mind around where we took out that we could be men and climb things while the sun set further and a remarkable day wrapped up with finesse.

South on Highway 99 — a back road to Eugene — Dan asked if he could show me a scenic way out. I agreed and Dan turned off the straight road south and angled southwest through farmland and wide open meadows for the low coast hills through towns I had never heard of like Low Pass toward a town called Mapleton at the end of the coast range, twenty minutes from Florence, Oregon. I hadn’t been to Florence since the road and as we rode along I was excited for the places on the coast I hadn’t been back to in years that I once considered home.

While we road from Corvallis, the weather wasn’t as wet and predictable as the forecast said. The sky was layered with different types of clouds and variant levels of them in contrast to the blue sky that blanketed the background. We talked about anything that came to mind and I could dialogue with process the many of my thoughts and ideas. He had a dingy pair of sunglasses that I wore as we curved from the south toward Florence at west. Out of the coastal hills we were welcomed by the sun that took a prominent position in the sky before the clouds that framed the golden sun as it set behind a thin layer of clouds like a silk screen to a harsh light.

I was hungry with thoughts of fresh seafood while we approached the coast. Dan was as hungry and he asked where we should eat. I wanted to eat soon so I said Florence, but once he said, “We need to eat fast if we want to explore Yachats before dark,” I changed my mind. While we rode north on the coast from Florence, I pointed out a spot for Dan to take note of so he could have a visual in his head of it when he read the part of Florence in Fog on Fire.

I had gotten Dan a copy of FOG that he had yet to read all of, but as we rode the coast and I related stories from the road to him, he was more interested in the story. When I wrote the book, my chief goal was to have context for my friends whenever I wanted to tell them stories from the road. That would be the greatest reward for the rest of my life.

The stretch of coast from Florence to Yachats went through a ten-mile stretch that I had walked my bike along years before from Carl G. Washburne, a campground that I was dropped off by car at. The car ride I had gotten sped over a thirty minute drive from Waldport, south through Yachats, and then to Carl G. Washburne, where I walked from to Florence. I was mesmerized by the views as we rode north out of Florence along the Coast Highway that rose hundreds of feet above narrow coves, a lighthouse, and grand view of the cliffs cut from millennial erosion.

We parked at a cove minutes north of Florence that I had walked passed on the road before. The highway went north above a beautiful bridge that looked like the bridges train’s ride on as they cut over waterfalls through the mountains. At the north end of the bridge, we turned down the slope to a parking lot before the beach. The closest spots to park at were feet from where high tide left a forest of driftwood. Off the shore were a couple cliffs that rose to hundred foot peaks from the low tide that shifted and made its way closer to the driftwood forest.

I was giddy before Dan parked and I had the door open before he turned the engine off. I exclaimed, “I’m gonna climbs those cliffs,” and took off as his words, “Do it,” stuck with me.

Dan wasn’t far behind when I saw him turn back a few steps and fiddle with something in his hands. I assumed he had a stroke of genius and had to pen it before forgetting while following to supervise my ascent. As I furthered toward the angular point of Carl G. Washburne State Park, where the cliffs from the ocean rose up, I hopped around tide pools. The nearer I got to the cliffs I saw a split in my path from the main portion of land to the rocky shore.

                 I slowed to a strut and read the  K E E P  O U T  sign for the

                                                         _{B I R D  S A N C T U A R Y}

I climbed up the nearby slope of mainland for a better view. As I rose up on a higher rock to navigate new ground, I saw Dan climbing across the rocky shelf I had been stopped on by the oncoming tide. He started out responding to my remarks about the area. I was in awe of the beauty and for a linguist I’m ashamed that my most articulate remarks were, “Wow, it’s so beautiful.” He chuckled, “Yeah, isn’t it?” I admired the day so much that I responded to his rhetoric, “Yeah.”

We moved ahead of the tide and passed back along the rocky shelf of the cove along tide pools. The marine life stretched its way on shore, leaving behind anemone and a population of mussels. Dan led us back to the river, but looked over his shoulder once more with a thoughtful inspection of the rock I ventured to climb, “I’m sure you could make it. I’m pretty sure. I don’t think it would be a good idea. They would probably catch you when you got to the top.”

The waves crashed onto the sand and extended far up the shore as Dan and I neared its reach and watched it withdraw. I waddled with my hands in my pockets toward the salty foam as it was left where the water drew back from.

I challenged, “Let’s see who can get closest to the water without getting wet when it comes back.”

He followed behind me while I was occupied trying to find the parts of sand that would get me closest to the water and put me more at risk of getting wet. That section was then overcome from both sides and I raced away and made it out dry per usual. My cohorts who I draw into the same game have a habit of underestimating the ocean’s surge and end up wet. Dan didn’t.

The fresh water river was trickling on a new path near us while we walked toward its source. Dan pointed out, “This river isn’t usually here. This is a new overflow.”

We walked from the ocean’s shore up the river’s edge. Ahead of us was an older couple walking back, and ahead of them were there two dogs in the thicket that was a direct transition from sandy beach cove to forested river bank. When the dogs saw us, they trampled back for their parents. The little one, who looked well-pampered, started to come a little toward me in defense of the new territory his family and he had come upon. As we passed each other, I got down in his face and pretended to antagonize his well-to-do life. His mother soothed from behind, “Oh, he won’t hurt you.” I thought she was talking to the dog.

I laughed inside when Dan called back, “Oh, we know.”

The two pets passed us in a putter for their parents while Dan walked beside me into the brush. Within, we came upon a shard of jewel — if Yachats was a gem — of the Oregon Coast. It was manifested as a patch of sandy bank along the clear river. It was a mystical, therefore soothing sight to see the patch of territory that I would’ve loved to spend a while at. Dan heightened my imagination by asking, “Do you think you would you camp here?”

“If I was riding past here, I would come down to make camp for the night.”

It was approaching golden hour by the time we made our way over the driftwood and dry bramble barricade to the truck. We swung out for town and pulled in front of the Chamber of Commerce so we could walk to a pub. The town of Yachats was quaint and nestled together. I was filled even more to overflow with pleasure in deep satisfaction and words at the simple sight of golden light splashed against bay windows of homes that rose above each other in the coastal hill above town.  

We walked down to a pub full of old locals with sideways glares and up to the bar for food and a beer. We both ordered different beer but the same meal, a sandwich and a bowl of clam chowder. At our table, I watched the sun set over the crystalline ocean and enjoyed with Dan a flood of conversation and laughter.

Two days after the trip with Dan, I contracted a terrible virus that left me bedridden for an entire week. I stayed in bed with chills, wheezing, I felt light-headed, dizzy, pale, weak, and had an empty cough the entire time. The following Saturday I talked to Dan’s wife, Bridget who was a physician’s assistant, and visited her for a diagnosis.

Over the phone it sounded to her like I had pneumonia, but upon a few tests in person she withdrew that opinion and diagnosed my condition as a bacterial or viral infection that would pass in time. The two don’t have kids but are well fit for them.