July 14, 2007—Zoom, zoom to the coast

The Salem morning is thick with humidity and it is due to be hot so we get a fairly early start headed towards back highways and the coast for our day’s outing. Marc misses the turn to Hwy. 223 so we need to backtrack a bit before stopping at WalMart in Dallas to pick up a camera case for the job digital which I am trying out on this trip. Unfortunately, since I am not used to using such a small point and shoot camera, my gloved hands mess up all the dials and I lose all the photos of the first half of the journey. Seems I turned them into short movie clips or something…ah, these new-fangled things. Marc will be the first to tell you I am a person who doesn’t like change in the things I use—I will fight kicking and screaming before I am forced to make a change to the newest version of a software program for instance and I am not relishing the idea that very soon my poor old dinosaur of a 1998 Nikon Coolpix is probably destined for the graveyard. It has become cumbersome and slow to use on our fast-moving journeys—by the time it dials itself up and zooms in (its default setting) we are always well past whatever it was I wanted to shoot. But this new 7 megapixel Casio is no replacement!

We proceed to follow Hwy. 223, a narrow backroads connector through some of the coast range to the point at which it drops us out on Hwy. 20, a major artery to Newport. Marc kicks up the speed on Hwy. 20, which on the valley side at least is wide and gently curving. Before we know it, we are cresting the hill and sliding down into Newport. The gray skies have cleared. We’re headed for the working harbor.

       

Once we find a place to park (Newport is always packed on summer weekends) we start to walk around searching for a lunch spot. We check out several possibilities and find ourselves gravitating back to Mo’s Annex since it sits harborside with a water view, has no line waiting, and it seems to be becoming an old friend on our coastal forays. We both have the cannonball bread bowl; Marc has chili, I have chowder and a cold glass of Chardonnay. After lunch we walk the town, specifically looking for a nautical clock for our park model but have no luck. I do however, find one treasure to walk away with, a cute wall hook of a crab saying "Fresh crab cooked here" which will go perfectly in my kitchen to hold an apron. Wonderful smells assault us on our meanderings; that mix of fresh shellfish and seafood mixed with the tangy salt air makes the breeze heady and has us realizing how much we miss living here.

       

       

Back on the bike leaving Newport, a huge raccoon crosses the road in front of us right as I’m snapping pictures. I didn’t even know I had gotten him since looking at the LCD screen is blurry for me for the most part and I’m never sure just what I am shooting. We head south and stop at several turnouts taking photos, most of which don’t turn out too well. We follow 101 south for just a little over 14 miles before stopping at the Alsea Wayside where we get more pictures of the bridge into Waldport. Our turn-off is coming up.

       

       

   

Oregon’s highway 34 which runs between Waldport and Corvallis is a motorcyclist’s dream. It is twisty, slow and tortured, and with not too much traffic this day. Big rigs and RVs don’t like it, with its hairpin 20 mph curves—even on the bike it is long and exhausting as Marc leans into the curves scraping pegs as he tries to tame the road into submission. I have to remind him he has a passenger after one particularly aggressive session in which I am left hanging onto the handles of the passenger seat; something I rarely do. At one very specific point we feel ourselves leaving the cool coastal climate and entering the hot valley where the temps jump by a good 25 degrees. Even our mesh jackets are of little help in keeping us cool. A sign reads 96. The road follows the Alsea River, broad at the sea, then finally meandering into little more than a wide stream. Once we reach Corvallis, Oregon’s famous college town, the road tames to expressway where we jump onto I-5 for the 34 miles back to Salem. All in all, a wonderful day!