A Girl with a Dude and a Sube, wandering Westward
“It is necessary to leave the impersonal highway, to step inside the rusty gate and close it behind. One is now inside the orange grove, out of one world and mysteriously in the heart of another. And after long years of spiritual homelessness, of nostalgia, here is that mystic loveliness of childhood again.” — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Cross Creek, 1942)
“The World’s Largest Lumber Port,
the yellow hulk of Cats winding bayfront chip yards,
betting on high-school football”
–Michael McGriff
Fresh local cheese + working fishing village + craft beer + beach + camping under the trees? Yes please!
Old growth rainforest hugs the shore. Misty, foggy bluffs overlook dramatic sandy, rocky beaches. Today we fall deeply in love with the Oregon Coast.
Don’t come here, you’ll be disappointed. SAID NO ONE EVER. Well, except for that one guy maybe.
The photographer in me finds the charred remains of the burnt forest darkly beautiful. I quickly push that ugly thought from my mind and do not stop to take pictures of the scarred landscape. The sky is hazy. The west is burning. But in New Mexico’s Enchanted Circle we will find blue skies and a surprisingly sweet tourist town.
My ears fresh from the city and not yet in tune with nature sounds, I do not immediately discern what makes the sound. Perhaps a child? A moment later, a cacophony of yelps and howls tells me it is a pack of coyotes. Aside from the wind, the birds, and the chorus of grasshoppers, these are the only sounds we hear from our campsite during our stay.
