Touring the Umpqua Valley

FRI
Judd dropped me at work so we could leave right from White City. He picked me up at the VA with the car packed for any eventuality of the weekend: wineries, hot springs, mountains, coast.  We ate home made chicken (and green bean) tamales, á la Judd, in the car as someone missed the rest stop and was getting hangry. (I was. I'm so glad that's now a real word in the dictionary.)We arrived in Elkton in the still-daylight about 7pm. (We had done the windy road drive (rhymes with wine-  not win) in the fall (in the dark) and did not realize the windy road parallels the Umpqua River: beautiful vistas and rolling green hills dotted with sheep and cows.
We found the River Inn  (a B &B) across the street from the Umpqua River on  a websearch of places to stay in Elkton. The website was wildly colorful and font-filled but not obvious how to make a reservation.  Judd ended up calling Margaret who was very accommodating and helpful. She wasn't going to be around so she just told us the key code for the door. We got in without a hitch--thank goodness for headlamps. It's hard to key in your code in the dark.  A BIG DUCK greets you outside and a very loud whine-meow greets you indoors (I never actually saw the cat.) 

We finished our tamale dinner  and Judd-made salsa on the deck at sunset. The B&B is tight:  8 rooms but obviously newly renovated.  Spacious bathroom (separate from toilet rooms) with lights  that go on when you enter and time out after you leave; toilet extra high (so you barely need to genuflect to lower yourself -- ideal for the arthritically challenged).  We've camped in places with constant traffic sounds--this place had lovely constant running-water sound from the river across the street.

We walked the 1.5 blocks to "town": a bar, a deli, a pizza oven, a pastry cafe, a winery and a post office. It took us about 10 min to walk back from "town" and 20 min to figure out the wi-fi had no password and was free to all. We watched a movie from the VHS library once Judd rewired the VHS machine to the hang-off-the-wall TV.  Zorro 2 was pretty good but the boot-legged copy still had all the 2005-06 commercials, over and over, and that meant the VHS couldn't hold the last 8 minutes of epic movie climax/ending.   We went to bed wondering if Antonio Banderas' son ever learns that his daddy is Zorro.    He would have been so 
proud.  : ( 

Saturday

Breakfast at Tomaselli's "in town" and a 40 min drive to the coast. We googled nearby hikes and it was between the Gold and Silver Falls or the Tahkenitch Loop.  We chose the loop.  It was billed as a 2 mile hike from forest to dunes to beach "more difficult"  OR a 3 mile hike from forest to dunes to beach "more difficult"  OR, a 6 mile loop with a 1 mile beach walk connecting the previous two. We chose the loop wondering if they were both "more difficult" then what was "easy" or "most difficult."   Pretty randomly, we chose the 2 mile hike in, a beach walk and the 3 mile hike out.  HOWEVER, once over (i.e. up AND down) walking in fine white sand, and through the beach grass, we found the beach walk is not labeled.  It was a sunny, bright beach with next to not a soul in sight.  (We passed a family of 4 in knee high rubber boots going toward the creek trail and over took 3 people and a dog, THEN not a soul in sight.)  On the beach, the wind had done creative sculpting so that every broken sand dollar or pebble or piece of wood had a sand-shadow behind it.  Judd took some artistic, lie-on-your-belly shots. Judd freed a still live crab back to the ocean but we continued walking swiftly away so we wouldn't see a seagull come eviscerate it while still kicking. 

 We feel quite smug that we've chosen to walk the beach mile toward the south as the wind is behind our backs, nudging us along.  We lunch on our carrot and celery sticks and 90% dark chocolate while sitting on a big dry drift log.  We start to estimate how long a mile could take to walk. I start looking for our egress in what I think is a mile of beach walking. Judd says, 'it's always farther than you think,' so we keep walking and then we see a pretty-in-the-distance sign We think we'll go  find guidance.  I periodically check my phone for "locate my phone" and I state I think my phone has walked well past where the lake should be over the dunes. Finally, we decide we must have overshot the trail and we head back north on the beach INTO the wind (for, what I again think is, over a mile.) We scan the beach grass for footprints which might signal someone has come or gone inland and, yes, Judd spys it.  We figure we only went 2-3 miles out of our way.  And now, the 3 mile hike out, back up and over the dunes, through the primordial forest of huge ferns and tall, straight Douglas firs. When we have cell service, we get pics of Malindi and Kelcy, et al. skiing at Sugarloaf.

We decide turning a 6 miles loop into a nine mile loop gets us a free trip to seafood dinner on the ocean.  We drive around the peninsula from Reedsport and find Griff's on the Bay. Judd has the best scallops he's ever eaten (and he's from Maine!) and I have the Crab Louie. Somehow this feast at 4 pm post-hike counts as lunch, so we still manage to go for brick oven pizza "in town" for a late 7pm dinner.  We're the only ones in the place but Joshua fires up the oven, throws the pie in the sky for us and pours a bottle of Oregonian wine we can carry home.  Elkton, albeit tiny, has big hospitality.  

VHS for the night: French Kiss (both our favorites: Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline, 1995)

And I don't even have time to tell you about Sunday's festivities yet.......