Oregon Coast

So after we left Gerry Martin in Portland yesterday morning, we made our way to the Great Sand Dunes, on the Southern Coast of Oregon. What a beautiful place. The dunes go on forever, and the beach was gorgeous. Imagine the dunes on New Jersey beaches, but only ten times higher and longer, and no development anywhere. Its serene and peaceful and free of houses. Peaceful. The one non-peaceful difference, is the dune buggy course -- we saw all kinds of folks getting their dune buggies ready and riding around having fun on their buggies. I personally don’t really understand why you would buy a dune buggy and all the gear just to ride around on sand, but these people were serious about their sport of choice!

After a little hike and nap on the beach at the Dunes, we kept driving. We finally stopped and got the last campsite at Harris Beach State Park, which is six miles above the California Border, and then walked to the beach and we watched a gorgeous sunset. Afterwards, we ate a delicious meal of fresh avocados and tomatoes and sourdough bread, and watched our campfire and read our books.

Right now, I am reading a book called Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon. It was written in 1983 and is a tale of one man’s journey across the country on the backroads of our nation. It took me a while to get into it, but is a really neat book, and it is making me want to get off the big roads and see what’s tucked into the forgotten corners of the country… but alas, that is another trip!

Mike is engrossed in a book called The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, and he can’t seem to put it down. It’s a fiction novel of a Japanese man in his early 30s who has left his job in Tokyo and who is also searching for his wife’s missing cat… and all of the adventures that go along with that.