Travels with Sadie: February 2013

We are sojourning at Harbor Vista county park in Florence, OR. Our arrival was Sunday afternoon, but since we don't have any wi-fi service at the park, I am posting this entry from McDonald's.

Here's the story. We left Dallas Sunday in beautiful (and unseasonal) sunshine. The old blogger, in his usual haughty way, assumed he knew the route to Florence, having once glanced at a map. But all it takes is one wrong turn, or in this case one failure to make the right turn, and one finds himself in the middle of an adventure. Having arrived at the junction of US 99 and OR 36, I headed west, expecting that I would turn onto Territorial Highway toward Veneta. At the junction, however, instead of following the route that was prescribed, I followed the sign that said “Florence, Mapleton” straight ahead, instead turning toward “Veneta.”

The result of my error was that we had a gorgeous drive though the coast range, past Triangle Lake, through beautiful and bucolic valleys and ultimately joining OR 126, the route I had intended to take, just east of Florence. My only regret about the error is that Jill didn't have the camera handy. It did take us longer to get here than I had planned. Jill agreed that, although the route is a little hair-raising for a motor home towing a car, the sheer beauty was not to be missed.

Monday morning, I was signed up for a webinar (the final in a series of three) with the Christian Business Men's Connection. Since there is no wi-fi service at the park, we drove a couple of miles to McDonald's, where there is free wi-fi and my favorite breakfast: Sausage McMuffin with Egg and coffee. Jill sat with me and caught up on her emails. After the meeting, we went back to Sadie and took the dogs for a walk around the park, which is absolutely stunning. We must come back in the fall to pick huckleberries.

After a rather violent rainstorm in the early afternoon, the clouds parted and we had a lovely romp on the beach. The dogs loved being off leash in the sand, and Jill and I enjoyed stretching our legs. In addition, I had an opportunity to take a few artsy shots on the beach.

A little local fauna.

We couldn't tell whether this was a kids' fort or someone's abode. The interesting thing about it is that the exterior is decorated with a lot of shoes, apparently gleaned from beachcombing.

The rip-rap that makes up the jetty, includes these interesting stones honeycombed with little holes. They appear to be sandstone that has been exposed to erosion.

Just a little fir cone lying in the sand, but the lighting made it quite attractive, I thought.

A home in the wilderness!

I never "tire" of finding interesting things to photograph!

We returned to the coach, and Jill assembled our dinner: homemade pizza. We sat down to enjoy a pre-prandial libation and listen to our favorite music. Soon, we noticed the sun was setting and painting the sky with pastels. A few more art photos and we have settled in for the evening. The pizza just came out of the oven and smells heavenly.