Thursday , June 22: The Oregon Coast

We had plans to leave the Redwoods today but the kids enjoyed the tide pooling so much that we decided to let them indulge for a few hours before taking off. Mila and Victor made sure to come say goodbye. Once Mila found out I had a cold she pulled out all sorts of remedies. Did I have cough drops? Here’s a lemon - drink that in your tea. Rub this garlic on your lips. Chicken broth and how to make it. There was also a short lesson on natural remedies for burns and one more as we were in the car pulling out for high blood pressure. It was interesting to me the longing on her face to keep us there as long as possible and I was struck, as I have been many times throughout life’s random meetings, especially these cross-country ones, of the immediate bond you feel with fellow believers. I really believe that our souls are knit together in some way through our shared salvation through Jesus. It’s a very homey feeling no matter where you go in the world, and even if you have a hard time understanding each other’s native tongue. We exchanged numbers and I hope that one day I can host these sweet people in my home in NC if life allows it. But if not, Mila will I’m sure be waiting to give me a hug on the other side of eternity one day. Such kind folk.

Onto highway 101 up the coast of Oregon… socked in… good grief. It’s like we can’t catch a break. A mile off the coast it was a beautiful day, but the coast line was completely covered in a fog. It made our plans to spend the day stopping at various pullouts fall a little flat. The first one was an expanse of

white nothingness so we decided not to waste time on any more until it cleared up. Sadly we passed several of our intended stops. It cleared a little and we decided to

take a side stop to Cape Blanco Lighthouse State Park. It had fogged back in once we drove down the 6 miles, but there was enough visibility to see a bit.

I love lighthouses. They are all in amazingly beautiful locations and there’s something very wild and romantic about living so far from civilization in order to provide a life-saving service to mariners. And not only that, many lighthouse keepers risked their own lives to row out into storms when they spotted a shipwreck. Their symbol as a beacon of hope and a light in the darkness only adds to their appeal. Cape Blanco is the oldest remaining lighthouse in Oregon, it is the westmost in the nation, is 245 feet up, making it the highest, and it had Oregon’s first female lighthouse keeper in 1903 (her husband was a lighthouse keeper who had died of tuberculosis and it was the custom to offer the keepership to the widow). I would have liked to have stopped to see the three others on this route but we were also anxious to get to Thor’s Well before dark so we have skipped the rest.

Here's the wreck of the historic Mary Hume that they weren't able to salvage and sinks more each year.

Thor’s Well was pretty cool.

It’s a shoreline of black volcanic rock where the waves hit it just right to make the water surge and pound and

the waves can reach 15 feet high or more.

The pound of the surge that thuds in your

ears is kind of crazy. It’s definitely not the kind of place you’d want to fall in. “It would be terrifying to fall in,” I mentioned. “Oh, I think it would only be a few moments of terror, and then it would be over,” was Abbey’s comeback. And she was right. No one would last long on those sharp rocks and pounding waves.

And that was our last stop. We are now on to a completely unplanned stop to a friend’s house in Newburg, OR. Adam and Katie Harrington. We knew Katie when we lived in Seldovia. Her father was a fishing tender and fisherman and he picked up the fish from the families that set-net on the Seldovia side of the bay and would deliver it to Homer for processing. When Katie and her sister Sarah were little, their family lived full time in a tiny cabin on the remote side of the bay and they were homeschooled. Once they hit middle school, their parents promised they would move to Homer so the girls could go to school. And they did. But every summer for fishing season they would move back to their little cabin. And they would attend the Island Church with us. I believe Katie was a freshman or maybe 8th grade when we first met them. She and her husband now live in OR and have two little boys. I am SO excited to see them again. The last time we saw them, they were engaged and we weren’t able to make the wedding.