Sunny Cold Day

 So we survived the really cold weather and the snow. It really didn’t snow that much down here, it was pretty much gone by the afternoon.  A friend up near Waldport got so much snow that her power went out for two days.  I guess heavy snow on the lines and trees brought down a bunch of power lines. So I can’t really complain about the weather as we had it pretty easy.  We left the water running in the sink all night and the portable heater on high and we had no frozen pipes.

So because it was so sunny and the tides were low in the morning so we decided to head to the beach.  We went up to Yachats and checked out smelt beach.  This beach was used as a hunting, fishing and gathering place for local tribal people. They would come here when the smelt fish were running strong. They would use large triangle nets with poles that created a pocket so that the fish could be caught by scooping and tilting the net upwards. Unfortunately due to over fishing the smelt population is not big enough for fishing anymore.

This beach didn’t actually have sand. It was more like very fine gravel.  As you can see from the pictures it is very rocky. We found a bunch of the tiny agates. Can’t wait to get home and make myself and agate candle.  I have seen them in local gift shops but instead of buying one I want to make my own.  You basically take a larger container, put a smaller candle holder inside of it. Then you fill up the space in between the two containers with the small agates.  You then put epoxy over the rocks so they stay put.  When you burn a votive or tea light candle the agates sparkle.  This picture shows the basic idea.

Here is the beach in Yachats

As you can see from Len’s coat that the breeze was still really cold, but the sun did have some heat in it and as the day went on, I almost wanted to take my sweater off. 

After smelt beach we headed to Stanfield Beach.  This one is very rocky, found a few agates and then Len found what he thought was another big agate but it looks like it was actually gut on a saw. We think that maybe somebody just brought it to the beach and placed it out there for someone to find.  I don’t think that there is anyway that this was done naturally.

It was facing this way up, so Len thought it was just a regular agate until he turned it over.

This is the side that was done with a saw

The beach it self is had to walk on but the area is beautiful. The bridge the dunes and the agates made it all worthwhile.

Winter has come to the Oregon Coast

Well looks like the weather that is hitting the west has made its way to the Oregon Coast.  Woke up on Tuesday morning to wind blowing, rain coming down and some hail as well.  We knew it was coming but it was kind of a shock to Lukie when I let him out to pee. He went out and then turned around and tried to come right back inside. I had to force him to go before I would let him back in for his morning cookie. 

Here is the hail

We did purchase a bigger dehumidifier that we have in the bed room and it is pulling lots of water out of the air.  It does take up quite a bit of room in the bedroom but we have it in a corner so we can get around it.  We will have to wheel it out into the Kitchen on travel days.  However this little bit of inconvience is worth it to have a dry trailer.  We have had dry windows every morning and we haven’t had to put the fan on, which helps with keeping the bedroom a little warmer.  We also purchased a small heater which we are using instead of the fireplace.  Figured it was cheaper to replace a $30 heater if it burns out rather that the fireplace. 

The temperatures are supposed to drop to to 29 F at night on Wed, Thurs, and Friday. It is supposed to be a mixed bag with rain and maybe a little snow and then sunshine, which is when it is supposed to be the coldest.  No clouds to keep it warmer.  It is supposed  to warm up in the daytime. We have a winter package on the trailer so not too worried about the pipes freezing, but we will leave the heater on all night, the doors under the sinks open, and the tap in the front sink running.  We will open the grey water at let empty out. That stopped the hoses from freezing a couple of weeks ago when it got cold.

We were going to head into Coos Bay today to see the new ant man movie but with the amount of wind and the noise was making Lukie bark for no reason. So we decided instead to stream the first two Ant Man movies on Disney and not leave Lukie alone for the afternoon.

So we woke up in the morning to this

I guess we shouldn’t complain too much, most of it was gone by noon.  We did head out to get a few groceries and just take a drive. Being cooped up watching movies does get a bit tiresome. It is good to get out and stretch the legs.  We headed up the road to the community of Lakeside. It is located on 10 mile lake. It is not a big town, a market, dollar general and three rv parks.  They also have the Lakeside Inn.  We drove up into the hills a bit, got a nice view of a portion of the lake. Looks like it is a skinny lake but has lots of inlets and bays. Lots of places for waterfront properties. Drove around the town a bit and at least 90% of the houses are Modular’s.  I am assuming it is quite a busy place in the summer.

Strawberry Hill and Tide Pools

So we did make it out onto a beach yesterday, found a few more rocks and just enjoyed walking the beach and listening to the waves.  We went back to Strawberry Hill beach and made it over the the far side.  I got some great pictures of some tide pools.

This is the first time I have actually seen an abundance of life in the pools and some more vibrate colours. I am going to assume that in the winter the tide pools are not an active as they are the rest of the years. Not sure if the sea anemones hibernate but we even saw a starfish. 

It is quite the hike to get down on the beach, definitely wouldn’t want to try it after it has rained.

Here are some pictures from the tide pools

Bullards Beach and Sunshine

 So we finally got a couple days of sunshine, so we have taken advantage of them.  We headed south to Bandon again to Bullards State Park. This park is located on the Coquille River and has a Jetty for where the river meets the ocean.  We have tried to do this beach in the past but it was so windy, it was hard to bike on the beach, but today it was a gentle breeze and lots of gravel on the beach. I took a picture of the special rocks that I kept separate.  I am going to be busy this summer at the lake, polishing all the rocks I have found from last spring to this winter.  I found a vibratory tumbler on facebook for cheap and I am going to learn how to use it.  The vibratory tumbler is supposed to be quicker at polishing level 3 & 4. Only takes 3 or 4 days. It is supposed to polish but not really shape the rocks, which is perfect for these ocean rocks because they are already shaped smooth from the sea.  I also found a bunch of sea glass, it was a beautiful day.

There is a small lighthouse at the mouth of the Jetty it is the Coquille River Lighthouse, it was built mainly for the jetty entrance to the river. 

We did check out the campground here as our camp host in Winchester Bay is also a camp host here in the summer.  Mike and Lisa spend 4 months at Bullards along with 14 other camp hosts. We have been looking at maybe trying the camp host thing in the future. You usually get free rent, laundry ect, and all you pretty much do is clean up the campsite before and after someone arrives. A little bit of cleaning and delivering firewood.  You get to meet a lot of people and it keeps you a little more active.  We did ask about the fact that we are Canadian and since most camp host positions do not include any money and they seem to be always asking for them we could do it as Canadians.  As Mike said there are over 267 state parks in Oregon alone and there are a lot that need hosts in the winter when most people don’t travel. By not having to pay for camping we could use that money to pay for extra travel insurance so we could stay down longer without having to go back to Canada.  So win win.  

We are finding that by being down here for months at a time that it is not the same as traveling for three weeks trying to fit in as much as you can do in those weeks. It is much more relaxing and not as pressured. Sometimes it is difficult to write about what you did everyday.  There are a number of websites that let you apply to be a host and most rv parks are asking for hosts all the time.  They are dealing with a worker shortage as well.  Will see what happens in the future with my knee surgery and how it fits into the schedule in the fall.

We have two more weeks here in Winchester Bay and then we are looking at heading to Pacific City up on the coast by Tillamook, then we are going to head to the Columbia River gorge and then home.  Not sure of the exact date but somewhere around the middle of March.

Big Creek

 So the weather has been really cold and rainy. We were talking to the camp host Mike and he said that this year has definitely had more rain that the previous years he has been here. It is really hard to get motivated day after day when it is cold and wet.  You have to just get up an do something.  So today we had a late breakfast and then headed North to see if we could find some new beaches. The later start didn’t matter as low tide wasn’t until 2 pm.  So by the time we got to Big Creek it was around one pm.   

Big creek is not an official state wayside, it is just a creek that leads out to the beach.  There is an open space on the side of the road that you can park a couple of vehicles and then you take a tiny path down onto the beach.  Luckily it wasn’t too wet so we were able to make it down without slipping.  

Lots of gravel, this beach had a bunch of yellow jasper as well as some red.  As you can see Lukie was having a great time running on the beach. Len and I don’t tend to look side by side so Lukie gets a lot of exercise running back and forth between us. He also managed to find a few people to visit with. He is quite funny, he goes running up to everyone but he is a pretty good judge of character on who he will let pet him.  

This is Len down at the other end of the beach.  I would definitely come back to this beach. I forgot to get a picture of the really cool bridge. 

Len found the biggest Agate so far. It was huge, found it just as we were getting ready to leave.

Not sure what we are going to do with it. Might cut it up into smaller agates or maybe just polish as is. Depends on which craft practice I do.  

So last night I posted our electric bikes for sale down here.  When we travelled down in November we had a bit of an issue with the back of the trailer swaying. Luckily we have sway protection with the truck so we were able to mange it but the bikes are too heavy to carry on the back of the trailer. They are fine in the rack on the truck but not the trailer.  So I posted them on facebook marketplace to see if we could sell them before we come home and then we will try and find some smaller ones once we get back to Canada.  We might try and find folding ones that we can put in containers and then carry them inside the trailer.  So I posted them and we had a message right away with someone wanting to buy them. I arranged a time and told the buyer that he would have to bring cash as we couldn’t take a check or a transfer because we didn’t have a bank account in the US. So they said they would send it through PayPal.  This is where it went wrong, I got an email supposedly from PayPal saying that I could accept this much money because I didn’t have a business account. In order to get a business account I would have to contact the last person who sent me money, get them to send me $500 and then I could deposit the full amount.  The email did not have proper grammar and after I accepted the whole amount I would have to send the $500 back. Needless to say I sent a message back that because of the scam email that they sent I couldn’t do business with them. Funny, they didn’t reply back.  So not sure if we will sell them before we get back, might have to drive just a bit slower on the way home but we have lots of time to get back. We leave here on March 6th and then we have two weeks to get home before our insurance runs out.  

Beach Comparison

 So today was 100% chance of rain and it came down on and off all day. However we did get a lot done. UPS delivered our new Den-Dry mat to go under the mattress and creates a barrier and air pocket on top of the bed frame. With the humidity we were getting a bit of mold but I cleaned up the little that was there, put the mat down, replaced everything with clean bedding and we should be good. This is a mat that was originally designed for marine vessels and everything I read up on says it should work.  I also go all the laundry done, we made pizzas with some of the leftover appetizers from yesterday day. Also cleaned the trailer.

Not much else but as I was going through my pictures I cam across one of Tillicum Beach when we went to it a few weeks ago. I posted a picture of a near by beach that showed all the sand.  I will post the two of them and you can see the difference. It is amazing how the landscape changes so quickly.  We might have to go again, after a storm. They say that is how the beaches get rid of some of their sand before it comes back all over again.

Yesterday

Three Weeks Ago

 Both are at low tide. What a difference.

Tillicum and Other Beaches

So we got up first thing this morning and headed north to Tillicum Beach.  The beach was beautiful, there was a number of people there, walking their dogs, flying planes and we were looking for rocks. Boy were we disappointed, it was low tide and there was absolutely no gravel anywhere, nothing but sand.  Every week the beaches change, more sand gets deposited until the a storm comes in and takes it all way.  

We headed back south and stopped at a few of the beaches that we went to earlier in the week, the best one was Bob’s Creek, I found an entire bag full of smaller agates. In all a beautiful day.

We got back in the early afternoon, just in time to have a shower and then sit down and watch the Super Bowl.  It was actually a good game, I like games that have lots of scoring, makes it more exciting. It was close but the Chiefs won.  I don’t think that there were any commercials that really stood out. The Budweiser one was kinda boring, just a quick look at the Clydesdales and then onto 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon.  I did like the Crown Royal one thanking Canada, but that’s just because you know I am Canadian.  

So we are going to see what the weather brings tomorrow, supposed to be rain, so may have to do laundry and maybe go for a walk.

Sunshine and Cold Wind

So today we headed to Siltcoos State Park. It is a trail head for ATVers.  Len and I decided to see how far down the beach we could go, we were hoping to make it to the South Jetty in Florence.  We had to push the bikes up a dune and then slide down the other side.  Thank goodness these bikes have a throttle because they are big and heavy and I found that if you put the throttle on just enough you can get the bike to do most of the work on the way up and you use the brakes to help on the way down.  The beach was great, harder sand so much easier to ride on. Lukie had a blast chasing the bikes, riding for a bit and then chasing again.  We didn’t quite make it all the way to the end though as the wind was really blowing and it was so cold.  We did make it about 10 miles down the beach. On the way back was much nicer as we were with the wind. Len’s poor hands were so cold he was having a hard time hanging on to the handle bars.

The beach was so long, you couldn’t see the end in either direction. The tide was coming in but there was enough hard sand for us to ride on. I did get a little wet, I thought I was far enough away from the waves, I stopped to let Lukie out of the basket and suddenly the waves were upon us. I just had to stand there until it subsided.  Stayed a little further way the rest of the ride.

Tried to get a picture looking through my rear view mirror, looked kinda cool

Len and Lukie trying to warm up and taking a break. We were out on the beach for over two hours. Would have been a great if the wind was a little less.  

I am really glad that I brought my heavy sweater with me, it has been great for the beach. It is a big bulky wool sweater that Len bought from one of those guys that sell things in the parking lot out of a van, you know blankets, bags, sweaters.  It stops the wind quite a bit, some days it is almost too warm.  We figures that because we were on the beach we didn’t need to worry about the helmets, meant I could wear my toque.

We stopped at Safeway and found a great deal on rib eye steaks, so picked up a couple, some potatoes and a salad for supper.  We got home and Len built a fire.  As you can see by the picture that it took a bit for me to warm up beside it.  The wind made the fire burn great but it competed with the heat.  It is supposed to be sunny tomorrow as well, just hope the wind calms down.  Low tide is mid morning, so we are going to get up early tomorrow and head up to Tillicum Beach. We had some good luck there last time we were there, lots of Agates, so hopefully tomorrow is good as well. Plus by getting up early we can get back in time to do some laundry and check out the Super Bowl.

New Rock Beach and a couple of old ones

 So today we headed North even though high tide was later in the day, which means that it is coming in higher and higher each wave, which can lead to wet feet.  I have learned that you have to be extra careful around creek mouths because when the tide meets the creek it creates all kinds of currents and suddenly you are surrounded by water up to your ankles. It has taken two days for my shoes to dry.

This picture of the bridge is down at the bottom of Strawberry hill, these bridges are all over the coast, they are very decorative and old school.

We also tried Heceta Head which is where the lighthouse is. We didn’t see it today as the tours were not open so will try another day.  The beach is quite nice but no gravel beds, so no agates. Lukie on the other hand had a great time on the beach. He actually went running up to this lady and poked her in the back of her calf, well she jumped but then once she saw him, they had a visit. He met her again on a different beach a little further up the road. 

 We didn’t find many rocks at all at this beach, so we headed up the road to Bob’s Beach again and it was definitely better but with the high tide, there were just not many rocks around. The waves were quite high though, pounding against the rocks. It was quite spectacular. 

Rainy Day Movie

 So Tuesday the weather was a little crappy again so we decided to take advantage of $5 movie tickets at the theatre in North Bend.  We went and saw A Man Called Otto with Tom Hanks.  The movie was excellent. Both Len and I enjoyed it very much, I would highly recommend it. It is a very simple movie but it does make you think and it brought tears to both of us.

I also went shopping at Joann’s to get some canvas fabric and serger thread to make little treasure bags.  I found these little trezure bags at the agate festival. They are little canvas bags with a plastic mesh on the bottom, elastic on top and a carabiner to attach them to your belt.  They work excellent for collecting rocks etc and you leave the sand out of your pocket.  We usually take a bucket with us to the beach, which works great but the bag comes in handy to put special rocks etc into it. This means I don’t have to sort as much later on.  I thought that they would make great gifts, so I am going to make a bunch when I get home.  The fabric I found has an ocean theme, so they should be very cute.  The Joanns in North Bend didn’t have the mesh so I have to either order some or check out a different Joanns.  I think that the grandkids will really like them and I know a bunch of other kids who might get some use out of them.

Len checked out the mall and found a couple of the washed ashore art pieces.  There was a couple of jelly fish and a whale skeleton. There was also a neat wood carving.