September 15, 2015 – Overcast, 60 degrees
Miles Today: 65
Miles to Date: 6,969
States to Date: 24
California! I rolled over the line in late afternoon and entered The Golden State – home to one in nine Americans, each of whom is increasingly thirsty. As I entered, fires raged in the State after a long, dry summer. But I brought with me the forecast of rain, a forecast heralded like a newborn over the past few days. If the word California means anything, it means hope. It’s where we head when we need a fresh start. Everyone here is hoping these rains will do some good, to extinguish fires in the short-term and quench thirst in the long.
Paul Hempel and Bruce Newman sent me off from Gold Beach with a huge breakfast. The ride along the Oregon coast was beautiful, though the wind turned into my face as the weather shifted. Much of the Oregon coast is preserved, with well-marked viewpoints along the way. I stopped to enjoy many of the diversions.
I took a break at the Brookings Library and continued on to California. I crossed the border and passed the requisite agricultural station. Immediately, there was much more development. More oceanfront houses, more farms, more places stacked on the hills. I turned off US 101 just beyond Smith River, passed the forbidding Pelican Bay Prison, and arrived at my warmshowers hosts.
Hope and Dave live on a two-acre orchard with a small house, shed building, and cottage out back. Dave had just finished installing batt insulation from the outside of the west wall. He asked me to help hold a 4×8 sheet of plywood at the corner. I suggested that the insulation would be ruined if the rain forecast proved true, so we spent an hour getting all the sheathing in place. It felt good to work for my supper of homegrown squash soup and thick, fresh bread. The simplest and most satisfying meal of my trip, topped it off with dark chocolate cocoanut patties for dessert.
After dinner I tucked into the back cottage, two charming rustic rooms with a comfy bed.
About paulefallon
Greetings reader. I am a writer, architect, cyclist and father from Cambridge, MA.
My primary blog, theawkwardpose.com is an archive of all my published writing. The title refers to a sequence of three yoga positions that increase focus and build strength by shifting the body’s center of gravity. The objective is balance without stability. My writing addresses opposing tension in our world, and my attempt to find balance through understanding that opposition.
During 2015-2106 I am cycling through all 48 mainland United States and asking the question "How will we live tomorrow?" That journey is chronicled in a dedicated blog, www.howwillwelivetomorrw.com, that includes personal writing related to my adventure as well as others' responses to my question.
Thank you for visiting.
September 15, 2015 – Overcast, 60 degrees
How Will We Live Tomorrow? 
I’m pleased you experienced the beautiful Oregon Coast and noted how it is preserved for public use. Hawaii and Oregon are the only states to guarantee public access to all of their beaches. Thanks to Oswald West, Oregon’s Governor in 1911-15, all 363 miles of the Oregon Coast is public land up to 16 vertical feet above the average low tide. Before the existence of Highway 101, many of the beaches were the main or only way to travel between towns up and down the coast. Administered by the State as Recreation Area, public ownership of the Oregon Coast was protected again in Oregon Law by Governor Tom McCall, 1967-75.
Born in Portland and raised in foothills of the Cascade mountains, the Pacific Ocean and the Oregon beaches, headlands and dunes have always been favorite parts of my life where my family and I would walk, gather seashells and drift wood and watch and listen to birds, seals and whales. Not until my mid 30s when, in Maryland, I experienced the Atlantic Ocean for the first time did I realize that lots of people don’t wear stocking caps, gloves and jackets when they go to the beach. Now in my 70s, I’m happy we still have free access to the beautiful Oregon Coast.
Thank you so much for sharing your and others’ writing, telling us about your work and your travels and for encouraging folks to think about “How we will live tomorrow?”. I learned about you in the Seattle Times and have been following you ever since.
We will live together in this wonderful world. We will preserve it for those who will live tomorrow.
Jeanne Large
Kirkland, WA
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Thank you for this background information about preservation on the Oregon Coast. I will publish your response to How wlll we live tomorrow this Sunday, and link it to this comment.
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Thank you!
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