A Wild Olive Branch: Enroute to Redding

Friday, August 31, 2012

Enroute to Redding - August 29,30 & 31, 2012

These are the last days of our trip along the Northwest coast of North America. We started at our home a few hundred meters from Alaska's Cook Inlet, wended our way through the Inside Passage aboard the MV Columbia, and for the last few days by car along the coast of Washington and Oregon. Tomorrow we turn our wheels inland to our destination, Redding, California.

On August 29, we took off from Ocean Shores, Washington where we had stayed overnight. Our room overlooked the Pacific Ocean....which during the time we were there lived up to its name. It stayed "pacific" -- peaceful -- under a warm sun with comfortable breezes. I kept thinking about how this coastal country looks when the weather is less....pacific....like in winter when gales sweep off the vast ocean.

We stopped a second night at Newport, Oregon. US Route 101 along the coast is beautiful in many places, like the picture at left shows. It's a bit slow because of the many towns along the road.

Our friend Frank said the towns are 27 miles apart because that's how far it was judged that horses could be pushed in a single day.

We picked up Frank in Bandon, Oregon, about an hour north of his home, where he had dropped off his Cessna 182 for its annual inspection.

Long time friends Frank and Jan have lived in Gold Beach for 12 years. It's a pleasant community of about 2,000 in the very southwest corner of Oregon. We stayed up to all hours last night chattering about everything. We'll stay again tonight.

The climate here is fascinating to me. It is almost always sunny and pleasantly warm in the summers. Frank says winters are cool with period rain events. The area stays cooler than inland Oregon and California because of cool coastal breezes.

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