Beach House Vacation

We rented a beach house for a week in Gold Beach on the Southern Oregon coast. I'd never been there before, but the pictures on the web site looked good. It was a 6-hour drive, and spitting rain when we got there. But the kids were off the charts with excitement.

The next morning the weather was a little better, but not much. Carmyn's sandals had disappeared off the back porch - man, sure is windy here. I found one of them on the grass below, but the other was missing. Later on I noticed something white deep in the dense bushes - I couldn't get in there, so I had Carmyn crawl through to retrieve here sandal - some animal must have thought it was a delicious treat.

Later, we drove up the road to the Dinosaur Park we'd passed on the way down. Giant life-sized dinos in a rain forest grove.

Our place was nice.

And the beach in front was even nicer.

You could almost see the kids on the beach from the house, but not quite.

Boy + sand + pail + shovel = contentment

Plenty of beach rocks to climb on


We drove down South 15 minutes for even bigger rocks. Verrrry windy.


When they misbehaved, they had to eat on the floor. Ok, they were pretending to be dogs.

As you can see, we had sunshine the rest of our trip. Sunsets every night.

We took a jet boat ride up the Rogue River. This lasted most of the day. We saw otters, seals, many kinds of birds, and a bear.





We hiked to see the largest Myrtle tree in Oregon or the NorthWest or something.

Trip to the aquarium in Crescent City, CA - it was only a 45-minute drive to the California border.



Scavenging for creatures in the tide pools. Lots of crabs and anemones.



The 'Broken Boat'

Three Rowan's


We finally saw the beached seals on the last day - after finding out you could only see them for a short while after sunrise.

I'm really losing faith in human nature

There are a high proportion of assholes around here. And when you scratch a bit beneath the surface, hoping to find perhaps a mild case of stupidity or ignorance, you are frequently dismayed to find out that these are just mean, unhappy people. Stupid and ignorant as well of course, but mean and ornery like a junkyard dog.

So let me describe the latest incident in our wonderful neighbourhood. This evening after work, I am out on a leisurely bike ride with my son. There's this loop we usually do, and we get to this one point where there's a small circle with 3 roadways leading into it, and a sidewalk leading out of the 4th direction. Before we get there, a car parks along the circle, blocking the sidewalk. As I wait for Rowan to catch up, a teenager gets out of the car and goes into the house. No big deal, and I don't say anything about it (this happens a lot). Then Rowan shows up, and observes "That car is blocking our way". Then another car pulls up behind, a 50-year old guy gets out, and I see he's going into the same house. Thinking quickly, I ask him if he wouldn't mind asking the owner of the blocking vehicle to move his car. I tell him it's our usual bike loop, and it would make it easier for my son, who's on training wheels, to negotiate around the car (there was really no room). He seems agreable, and a few minutes later the teenager comes out and gets into his car. I thank him, but he wordlessly screeches his vehicle around the circle to a new parking place, and gives me a dirty look as he gets out. Hmmm. Now the older guy comes out, as I'm urging Rowan to get his speed up so he can make it up the sidewalk lip, and mentions it would be nice if they painted the curb yellow or red, so they would know not to park there. I agree that would make it easier, but point out that it seems like common sense not to block a through-way. Well, this sets the guy off. He says he'll park there whenever he !@$!@#$#!@ pleases, and walks away, calling me ....Asshole..... I yell back "Don't talk like that in front of my kid!". He says something again like "Screw you, I'll do whatever the fuck I want". Then me : "Well, maybe I'll just call the cops next time I see you park there". Him : "You do and you'll be sorry!". Hmm, that's an overt threat, isn't it ? Could report him. Maybe I'll talk to my cop friend across the street about it. I need to get Rowan out of here, and we proceed along. The guy is still jabbering away. I yell "Enough!" very loudly - I'm starting to lose control, but I resolve to just get us out of there as quickly as possible.