Author: Sue Fagalde Lick

writer/musician California native, Oregon resident Author of Freelancing for Newspapers, Shoes Full of Sand, Azorean Dreams, Stories Grandma Never Told, Childless by Marriage, Now Way Out of This: Loving a Partner with Alzheimer's, and the Up Beaver Creek novel series. Most recently, I have published three poetry chapbooks, Gravel Road Ahead, The Widow at the Piano: Confessions of a Distracted Catholic, and Blue Chip Stamp Guitar, plus a full-length collection Dining Al Fresco with My Dog. I have published hundreds of articles, plus essays, fiction and poetry. I'm also pretty good at singing and playing guitar and piano.

If it’s not wet, it’s frozen

Annie and I have a bedtime ritual. I turn off the TV, empty the water out of the dehumidier in the den and turn it on. That machine that we bought secondhand many years ago sucks up about a gallon of water a day in the rainy season from a room that appears to be dry–but it’s not. Our den used to be the garage. It’s damp and usually about 60 degrees. Mold appears on things in the closet, and giant water stains mar the beige carpet.

Moisture is a constant problem here. I was sorting through old newspapers and magazines on Saturday and found a box containing my very first publications. I found poems, short stories and articles from the early 1970s, as well as articles I wrote for various publications, including the San Jose Mercury News, Bay Area Parent, Bay Area Homestyle, South Valley News, Corporate Times, the Advocate Journal and others. There were my early prizewinning poems,  the article I wrote about San Jose State University when I was a student, my treatise on bees for Family Motor Coaching. A whole history of a career lay in that box, but a lot of it was so moisture-damaged from years in a coastal storage locker and then another year in my garage that I had to throw it away. I set aside the most precious things to be scanned into the computer. Then I went to Staples and bought some plastic bins for future storage.

The moisture is good for our skin, and it’s good for ferns and rhododendrons, but not so great for paper.

We haven’t had any rain for several days now. Instead we’re into an icy period, with the temperature in the 30s during the day and the 20s at night. If we had precipitation, it would be snow, but instead everything is coated with ice. So the other night, I turned on the dehumidifier, took my bedtime pill, brushed my teeth and then led Annie outside to make her final potty stop. She has a doggie door but rarely goes outside without me.

Her first stop is always the water bowl. This time, she put her tongue down and hit solid ice. I laughed at the look of total confusion on her face. I got her inside bowl and offered her liquid water, but no, she had to drink out of the outside bowl. She licked at the ice, pushed it around with her nose and finally found some water underneath.

After her drink, she skidded across the pavement and crunched across the frozen lawn to squat and melt some of the ice. Unlike most nights, she did not take time to sniff the air or run after phantom invaders. Too cold! She ran back inside and waited for her two Milkbones. If I just give her one, she’ll stare at me until I give her another. I kissed her goodnight, and we retired to our respective beds, mine in my bedroom and hers by the pellet stove which would be coming on and going off all night, lighting the room with an orange glow. By morning, the bin would be empty, and Annie would be curled up tight against the cold. I’d get another bag of pellets and start fighting our daily battle against the cold again. I just bought another 18 40-pound bags, half of them still in the car.

Nobody told us it would get this cold when we moved to the Oregon coast. And yet, when I look out the window at our bright blue sky without a hint of smog, when I step outside into the icy cold at night and see the stars so bright I could touch them, when I look at the trees and the ocean and the boats in the bay, I can’t believe how beautiful it is here. So I’ll buy plastic bins to protect my possessions and lots of pellets to keep me and Annie warm. Only a fool would complain.

You Can’t Wait for Spring Cleaning When There’s a Waterfall Outside Your Bedroom Window

I awake to the sound of rain pattering on the sidewalk out front. It’s a sweet sound compared to the waterfall I heard for weeks before I cleaned out the gutters.

Cleaning the gutters here is one nasty job. I’m scared of being on the ladder in the first place, and there’s no way I’m going on the roof, probably the result of my father warning me all my life that I would fall if I got an inch off the ground. But my house is surrounded by trees, and we’re prone to wild wind storms, so the gutters fill up.  I can either listen to the waterfall and get drenched every time I walk out the front door, or I can clean the gutters.  I get up on the third step in my grubbiest clothes and a bucket and a trowel and start scooping up wads of pine needles attached to wads of weeds. It comes out the color and consistency of spinach that has been allowed to rot in the bottom of the refrigerator. It’s deep, it’s thick, and I can never get it out without getting it all over me.

This time the gutters were especially full, but I got most of it out and returned safely to the ground. Just as I was about to put the ladder away, my neighbor came walking over. Yes, he’s the same guy who saw me in my bathrobe last week. Post-gutter cleaning, I had dirty water and spinach gunk all over my blue sweatshirt and my ratty jeans, with some on my face and my glasses and possibly in my hair. Yeah, he’d been meaning to take care of my gutters for me. Sure. Too many promises, not enough action. The waterfall keeps getting louder. But he did come over the next day and tack up a section of gutter that was hanging down. That will make my gutters run clean, he said. Uh-huh.

Anyway, with the new year happening and just enough sunshine to show me that this place can’t wait for spring cleaning, I’ve been on a cleaning marathon.

The lid on my hot tub had been lying on the grass since the last big windstorm. It’s too big for me to move by myself. I had turned the heater off as the tub filled with icy water, leaves, twigs, dirt and the ever-present pine needles. On that same sunny day when Pat fixed my gutter, he helped me get the cover off the lawn and back onto the tub. The next day, a Sunday, I drained the tub, got inside and cleaned it, getting all wet and dirty again, and refilled it. By the following evening, it was full of clear 100-degree water. Ahhh.

Meanwhile, the kitchen beckoned. I live alone, except for a dog who doesn’t cook and eats pretty much the same thing every day. Due to cooking sprees, sporadic guests, culinary gifts, and always thinking I might use stuff someday, I had quite a collection of things I might not need. For example, I’ve been keeping: spices that are not only from last year but from the last century; medicines from dog diseases long gone, including a potion I had to rub on Annie’s privates, not fun for either of us; plastic containers with white powder that could be (no, not drugs) powdered sugar, corn starch, flour or Bisquick; coffee, coffee, coffee, which I don’t drink, fruity teas from the last century that I will never drink; about fifty commemorative mugs and even more commemorative wine glasses; recipe refugees, including three little cans of water chestnuts, a box of lasagna noodles that expired in 2010, and two giant cans of enchilada sauce; recipes I clipped from the San Jose Mercury-News in 1974; potholders I crocheted when I was eight years old; and an electric sandwich maker I forgot I had—I’m the sandwich maker: lay out two slices of bread, spread with mayo and mustard, throw on some meat, cheese or tuna, heat in the toaster oven until I finish reading whatever chapter or article I’m reading, cut in half and eat.


For once, I didn’t just look at all this stuff and put it back. The garbage man is going to wonder why I’ve got so much trash this week, and I’ll be paying another visit to the Goodwill truck. Out, out damn junk.

This morning, I looked at my clean kitchen and smiled. Clean! Now I’m ready for a new year. Or maybe I’ll start on the storage cabinets in the laundry room.

Have you started your New Year’s cleaning yet?

Caught in My Bathrobe Again

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How is New Year’s Eve different from any other day? I get up wanting to write, but thinking I might have a few bills coming due, I sit down at the money desk for a minute.  I find a mountain of correspondence to manage, expenses and income to track, and yes, my Visa bill is due in just a few days. 
Will they give me any grace for the New Year’s holiday or sock me with a late fee? I don’t want to find out, so I write the check and try to sneak out to the mailbox, which is across the street, in my nightgown and robe, hoping nobody sees me. And guess what, there’s my across-the-street neighbor walking right toward me, shouting “Good morning!”
“Oh crap,” I mutter. My hair’s sticking up in all directions, I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet, and I’m wearing my fuzzy bathrobe that’s been washed so many times it has faded from lavender to gray. “Good morning!” I reply, walking as quickly as I can. It’s about 35 degrees out, my driveway is green with moss, the sky seems to be holding its breath before a big rain, and Annie is watching me out the window from her perch in the big green chair.
It’s almost 10 o’clock, and I haven’t written anything except checks. Till now.
That’s how my days go. By noon I will be dressed and I will be well on my way to my quota of fresh writing and rewriting because that’s what I do. I take care of the dog and bills, eat breakfast, check email, then write until I’m done writing—however long that takes. It works, so I’m not changing my pattern for 2013. Maybe I ought to buy a more attractive robe or find one that looks like clothing. It’s always embarrassing when a mail carrier, utility guy or evangelist comes to the door and I’m still robed for writing.
This is so not what I was going to write today. I was going to wax philosophical about the years since we moved to Oregon in 1997. I have now been here more than one-fourth of my life, and so much has happened. Books published, loved ones gone, places traveled, major world events survived. Instead, I’d rather give praise for a million daily joys: delicious meals, hugs, songs, words written, books read, dog walks, new shoes, favorite TV shows, compliments, new friends, hot tubbing, roses, blue hydrangeas, winter tulips, wild blackberries, iced tea, marionberry pie, raviolis, BLTs oozing mayonnaise, sunshine, snow, blue jays, woodpeckers, robins, going away, coming home, prayer, a soft fuzzy bathrobe, and you.
I’m thankful for a fresh new year. I’m hopeful for the future and grateful for the past. I wish you all a fabulous 2013 full of blessings.
And now, I think I’ll brush my teeth.

A little poem for Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas! Here’s a little Christmas poem for you. Not every bit of it is true. I can’t stop rhyming! 
Love you, 
Sue
I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
I’ll be home for Christmas,
relaxing with my dog.
Because I’m lactose intolerant,
I won’t drink any nog,
but I will post on my blog.
I’ll be home for Christmas,
alone beside the tree,
unwrapping all the presents
I purchased just for me;
they’ll all fit perfectly.
I’ll be home for Christmas
after midnight Mass at ten
when we’re celebrating Jesus’ birth
and peace on earth to men,
singing “Jesu Bambino” again.
I’ll be home for Christmas.
It will look like I’m alone,
but I’ve got my dog beside me
and my family on the phone,
also fresh blueberry scones.
I’ll be home for Christmas
as the guy says in the song,
but home has many meanings
and not one of them is wrong.
When you sing, I sing along.
I’ll be home for Christmas,
no turkey, ham or roast.
I’m eating enchiladas
with a tall tequila toast
to my most enchanting host.
I’ll be home for Christmas.
You might hear me caroling
in my favorite red pajamas
with feet and everything—
and a little bit of bling.
I’ll be home for Christmas.
Don’t feel sorry for me.
In this house full of lights and food and song
with my twinkling artificial tree.
It’s exactly where I want to be.
I’ll be home for Christmas,
maybe playing my kazoo.
But if you ring my doorbell,
then my Christmas won’t be blue
‘cause you’ll be home for Christmas, too.
Copyright 2012 Sue Fagalde Lick
Post this without attribution and Santa will blow up your house. 

Hang onto each other as the world goes nuts

I’m watching the Sitka spruce trees behind my house dance in the wind against a partly blue sky. It’s not quite sunny. In fact, as I write, the clouds are expanding and darkening, but it’s brighter than the twilight we have experienced the last few days. Last night’s gusts tossed my hot tub cover across the yard like a Frisbee and sent my recycle bin halfway to Seal Rock. Small branches are scattered around the yard. But I seem to have escaped major damage. That’s not true everywhere. As I was driving home from Newport yesterday, signs were sailing across Highway 101 and branches were flying. The wind threatened to toss my Honda off the Yaquina Bridge. This morning, all the major roads east are blocked by debris and fallen trees.

Tomorrow it may snow. Or just rain like crazy while we hurry to build an ark or at least stretch tarps over our leaky roofs. It’s a stormy time on the Oregon coast, but this is typical of December.
What is not typical is all the violence happening in our world. A gunman opens fire at a shopping mall in Oregon, killing two strangers plus himself. Another gunman kills 20 kids and six employees of an elementary school in Connecticut. Before he went to the school, he killed his mother. Finally he killed himself. He was only 20 years old. All of us watching on our televisions are horrified and heartbroken.
There is more violence all over the world, people getting killed more often in greater numbers, but here in the U.S., we think it won’t happen to us. My city, Newport, is even smaller than Newtown, Connecticut, but we have seen violence, too. Remember Christian Longo, who killed his wife and three children, put the wife and one child in a suitcase in Yaquina Bay and the other two kids in the water in Alsea Bay? He’s in jail now. Remember the guy who shot the cop in Lincoln City and led local law enforcement on a two-day manhunt that came up empty? They never have found him. Remember the too-many people who have died here in boating accidents or gotten swept off the jetty or taken out to sea by sneaker waves?
We’ve had plenty of natural disasters that surprise us with their power. Superstorm Sandy was the most recent, but it seems to happen more and more. One day, life is fine, and the next day it’s over.
It’s hard to find something to hang onto when you know that at anytime a gunman, a sneaker wave, a flood, or big gust of wind can take it all away. For some of us, it’s God and a life beyond this one. For all of us, it’s each other. It’s ironic that all of this is happening at Christmas time. But the holidays bring people together, and that’s exactly what we need right now. Put up the bright lights, enjoy the good food, have fun giving each other presents. If it becomes a chore, stop and just enjoy being alive and safe and together.
The blue sky is gone now, and it’s about to rain. It may snow here tomorrow. Let’s hug each other and hold on.

Christmas Trees Bring Memories

Before I met Fred Lick, I had never gone to a Christmas tree farm. When I was a kid, my father brought a tree home from some lot and we didn’t see it until he was dragging it into the living room and installing it in the old stand with a bit of cursing and pine needles dropping all over the carpet. Dad has never been Mr. Christmas, more like the Grinch, so our decorating sessions were a tad tense, to put it mildly. By the time my brother started throwing tinsel at the tree while I added a few strands at a time and Mom straightened out what we put on, Dad had usually gone off to do something else.

But Fred loved this holiday so much he couldn’t wait to get started. Around Thanksgiving, he made me sit down with the calendar and choose a date for going to get our tree. The earlier the better. In the years when his son Michael lived with us, he joined the tree-chopping crew. We put on our sweaters, heavy coats, gloves and boots and went forth in our Mazda pickup to a distant tree farm in the woods where recorded Christmas music played from an unseen stereo while workers in Santa hats selling wreaths, stands and hot chocolate handed us a long-handled saw and briefed us on the significance of the various labels tied to the trees.


Through rain, mud and/or mushy mushrooms, we went from tree to tree. Too tall, too short, too skinny, bare spot on one side, no, maybe, yes, oh that’s it. What do you think? The three of us would stand there staring at this tree for a few minutes, sighing at its beauty. Then Fred would lower his saw and cut down the tree.  I can still hear the rasp of the saw, smell the sawdust, feel the cold air on my face. As Fred sawed, we held onto the top, immersed in the smell of pine needles, getting sticky sap on our gloves. Then, one of us holding each end and one in the middle, we carried it triumphantly back to the office where the Santa-hatted worker swiftly tied it up in twine or netting and eased it into the truck while one of us, usually me, wrote out a check.


At home, the tree rested in a bucket of water until we were ready to install it in the house. A new slice off the bottom, a long period of trying to get it straight in the stand—why did it always look straight from one side and crooked from the other?—and then we got the boxes of ornaments and Christmas decorations down from the rafters. We turned up the Christmas music, heated up the hot buttered rum (hot chocolate for Michael) and decorated for hours, using colored balls, Santas, wreaths, angels and Christmas stockings that had been in our families for decades or that we had acquired together. Each item had a memory attached.  


 Ah, those were the days. Michael is grown and living in Portland now, and Fred passed away last year. In 2011, my first Christmas alone, I could not bear the thought of decorating for Christmas without Fred. Eventually I put up a small artificial tree and a few decorations, but it wasn’t the same. Too many memories.


This year, it was easier. I put up the artificial tree again, and I hung ornaments on it that make me happy, little guitars and pianos, bears and dogs, ornaments made of sea shells and old earrings, pieces purchased at craft fairs or given to us by friends. I topped the tree with the angel that Fred and I always used. I hung colored lights around the windows, and when I was done, I turned off all the other lights and admired my handiwork. Now as I write, there’s a Santa on my windowsill, a wreath on the bathroom door across the hall, and a clock that plays Christmas carols on the hour in the dining room.


It’s not the same as it used to be, but it’s good and getting better. Merry Christmas to everyone. Please feel free to share your Christmas tree experiences in the comments.

Christmas Shopping at Newport’s Bizarre Bazaars

Bazaars are bizarre, at least here on the Oregon coast and probably in every small town in America, and they are happening right now as we scramble to buy Christmas presents before it’s too late. I had this plan on Saturday to do all of my Christmas shopping in one day, plus writing out my cards and decorating the house. I didn’t quite make it. Okay, I barely got started.

But I did shop. I started my Christmas marathon at the cemetery, switching from the blue flowers on my husband’s and in-laws’ niches to the Christmas flowers. That put me right in the middle of where everybody was going that day, between the Farmer’s Market, Pick of the Litter Thrift Store, and the first annual Chocolate Coffee Christmas Classic, not just a bazaar but a “holiday expo” being held at Newport Intermediate School.  Oh, and the Eagle’s Lodge was having a sale, too.
The Farmer’s Market has moved into the big hall at the Lincoln County fairgrounds for the winter (Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.). Inside, I found the usual conglomeration of handknitted scarves, jewelry, photographs, a lonely author hawking his books, bread, pizza, produce, plants, homemade jam, and miscellaneous art made out of wood, glass, shells, and rocks.
Pick of the Litter, one of the best thrift stores around, supports the Friends of the Lincoln County Animal Shelter. Also at the fairgrounds, it was jammed with people perusing its collection of used clothing, books, CDs, kitchen supplies, and doodads of all sorts. Some were also buying copies of the FOLCAS calendar, featuring local pets. My Annie’s picture is in the upper left-hand corner of November 2013.
The Eagles Lodge sale on Olive Street, held in the dark meeting hall, was more like a garage sale. Paperback books for a quarter, Avon jewels and potions for “best offer,” handmade ornaments and more scarves. Pretty low key.
The star of the day for me was at the Chocolate Coffee Christmas classic. The intermediate school parking lot was jammed with cars as I parked and made my way past the donation station. Proceeds from from the expo benefitted Lincoln County School District’s HELP program for homeless students, the Newport Food Pantry and the Samaritan House homeless shelter.
Picture this: booths offering chocolate samples and coffee everywhere you look, interspersed with other booths offering candles, Christmas tree ornaments with nautical themes, scrapbooks, jewelry, coffee mugs, knitted, crocheted and quilted gifts, goat milk soap, glass floats, pop bottles melted into ashtrays, bright orange OSU and green U of O glass business card holders, photographs of beach scenes and sea birds, fabric angels, tote bags and purses, more ornaments, feather earrings, more jewelry, shoppers in spangled baseball caps, and little old ladies knitting, crocheting, beading, gluegunning,processing Visa cards on cardboard-box tables, urging you to taste, taste, taste and buy, buy, buy. And I did, did, did. My bag got so heavy in the first room I had to take it out to the car before I visited the gymnasium. I think it was the candles embedded with rocks that did me in.
I only hit a small portion of the sales happening that day. I missed Holiday House on the  Bayfront, St. Stephen’s chowder luncheon and sale, the holiday craft sale at the Connie Hansen garden, the 11th Hour Santa Sale in Lincoln City, and the 85th annual Yachats Ladies Club Bazaar. Too much!
Now granted, the people on my Christmas list might not want another handknitted scarf or a melted-bottle ashtray or yet another lighthouse ornament. Too bad. We don’t have a mall. We have bazaars. Wait’ll they see what I got them this year. 
The photo above shows some of my own treasures that came from past bazaars.
(Hey, wondering what to get people? Maybe they’d like to read one of my books: Shoes Full of Sand, Childless by Marriage, Stories Grandma Never Told, Azorean Dreams, Freelancing for Newspapers. Peruse my bookstore page at http://www.suelick.com/Products.html. Books are easy to mail and easy to wrap.)

Driving over bicycles and bumpy roads

My trip from Oregon to California may have left me with post-traumatic stress disorder. Not the family part but the driving part. You may have read in my last post about how I was heading out into a superstorm a week ago with hurricane winds and rain coming down in waves. Go or stay? I debated, hesitated, stopped on the side of the road to ponder, and I went.

On the second day of the trip, I left Yreka, California at 9 a.m., anxious to get to San Jose as early as possible to beat at least some of the rush-hour traffic. It was raining buckets. The backsplash from the trucks blinded me, and the haze was so thick I never saw Mt. Shasta.

Around Red Bluff, the deluge eased up and I streaked south, cutting lunch short, making no unnecessary stops. Redding, Red Bluff, Corning, Maxwell, Willows, Winters, drive! I hit sunshine over Benicia. It came with scary traffic, but at 2:40, I was already in Dublin, only 45 minutes from Dad. That’s when it happened.

Lying in the middle lane of the 680 freeway was a bicycle. Driving 70 miles an hour, with other cars on both sides, I swerved some but couldn’t miss it. The bike tore a hole in my right front tire. The tire pressure light came on. I limped to the side of the road, struggling to control the car as I brought it to a stop in a V-shaped space between cars coming off the 580 freeway behind me and flying past on 680. The tire was flat. I activated the emergency blinkers. Dialed AAA with shaking hands. Called Dad to tell him I’d be late. Moved everything out of the back of the car where the spare tire lives to the front of the car and waited. Forty-five minutes later, a yellow tow truck pulled up. A smiling white-haired man put on the baby spare that’s not up to freeway driving and led me to American Tire in Dublin. I got in line. (Tires are big business!)

Three hours and $158 later, I entered stop-go traffic in the dark and crept from Dublin to San Jose on my shiny new tire. Still shaking. I arrived at 7:15 p.m.

You’d think that would be the end of the story, but no. The next day, Wednesday, we got into Dad’s Buick for our trip to my brother’s house in Cathey’s Valley, on the road to Yosemite, and Dad missed a turn. He decided he knew another way, and we wound up in the mountains driving two-lane roads that were all bumps and curves, with no destination in sight. The cows did not offer directions. I prayed we wouldn’t end up dead in a ravine. The battery on my cell phone was dead. No one would know where we were.
Eventually we made it to Raymond, a tiny settlement where we stopped at the bar and got directions down a road that didn’t even look like a road. Oh, how I wanted to order a beer and settle in with the locals while Dad was outside on the porch telling a cowboy about my brother the lawyer. His response was that they don’t need no stinkin’ lawyers. Somebody gets out of line, they just shoot him or string him up on an oak tree.

After another hour of non-road roads, we emerged on Highway 140 and made it to Cathey’s Valley, where the weather was wonderfully warm and the dogs greeted us in tail-wagging ecstasy. The kitchen, where my sister-in-law was deep into a baking marathon, smelled wonderful.
Thursday, we drove deeper into the gold country to Copperopolis for Thanksgiving dinner, and I’m happy to report no problems. And now, I’m halfway home and hopeful.

My Thanksgiving was wonderful. I hope yours was, too. I’m amazed at how quickly the Christmas lights went up. So, Merry Christmas. Watch out for flying bicycles. See you in Raymond.

Just Your Average Oregon Coast Storm

A super windstorm hit the coast Sunday and Monday. You might have heard about it on the news. Sunday night, a 98 mile an hour gust blew off part of the roof at Izzy’s restaurant in Newport. I can’t believe it didn’t blow mine off, too. Pieces of trees and yard decorations were flying all over. The wind chimes were doing somersaults. Meanwhile, I was packing for my trip to California, wondering if I could really go.

On Monday morning, it was still raining, still blowing, with reports of damage and road closures. My route was clear so far. I checked the reports over and over. I prayed. I asked my Facebook friends if I should go. I loaded the car. Once the dog was sitting in the driver’s seat, it was hard to change my mind.

I got as far as Lost Creek State Park, about a mile and a half from home, and decided to get off the road. The wind was blowing from the south so hard it was like trying to drive against an invisible wall. The rain slammed against the windows so thick I could barely see. This is nuts, I told the dog as I pulled into the parking lot and stared at an ocean that was all froth and fury.

We can’t go, I decided, but somehow when I came out of the parking lot, I turned south toward California instead of going home. The rain had eased a tiny bit, and I decided to keep going.

I had to take Annie east down Highway 34 to the kennel in Tidewater. I saw just small debris going, but 15 minutes later, coming back, there was a tree across the road. No cell phone service there. Several men had already parked and were cleaning up the tree branches with their hands. When they got one lane cleared enough, we drove over the rest of the tree and went on.

Back on 101, I turned south again. Wind, rain, water on the road, rivers rising nearby. Gripping the steering wheel so tight my hands hurt, and my accelerator leg hurt, but I couldn’t relax for a second. Speed limits meant nothing; we had to drive much slower than usual just to keep from sliding off into the ocean. I kept thinking: where will I have to stop, how will I rearrange this trip, I’ll never travel on Thanksgiving again.

I finally got to Florence, praise God, houses, stores, stoplights. I found the restaurant where I had planned to eat lunch, the Hot Rod Inn, with old cars literally sticking out of the roof. But it was closed! For sale. I drove on, hoping to eat at another place south of Florence. It was closed, too, for lease. Nuts!

The thirty-eight miles to Reedsport took forever, water blowing across the road like waves, car losing traction every hundred yards. But I made it to Harbor Lights, at the intersection of 101 and Highway 38. Got soaked on the way in. I highly recommend this restaurant. Specials in colored chalk on the blackboard on the far wall, display case with pumpkin muffins, carrot cake, Marionberry crisps, lava cake, yum. Meat lovers can order wild elk or boar, and there are eggplant sandwiches for the vegetarians. I had a mushroom burger on chiabatta bread, oozing mayonnaise. Heaven. Perfect French fries, crisp on the outside, soft on the inside.

I talked to a guy there who was worried about the road north to Yachats. Just rain and wind, I said, but it could change with the next gust of wind. It turns out we both went to San Jose State.

As I paid my bill, the waitress wished me a nice evening. It was only 1:30 in the afternoon but dark as twilight when I ran out to the car, getting wet again, and started my eastward trek along the Umpqua River away from the ocean.

I saw more elk than ever at the elk preserve, most of them close to the road, most of their land under water. Usually there are crowds of camera-bearing tourists taking pictures. Not this time. Too wet and wild.

The rain began to lighten up after Elkton, a few more miles down the road. I looked around and remembered how incredibly beautiful western Oregon is. I cranked up the radio and made it to Yreka at 6:00. Clear, light wind, temps in the 50s. After all these years going back and forth, this motel room feels like home.

I had put a call out on Facebook, asking my Oregon friends whether or not to go. My friend Pat, from Massachusetts via California, said don’t go. My friend Sandy said, too late, that newscasters were telling people not to drive if they didn’t have to. My Oregon friends said check the weather and go if it’s not snowing. My friend Lauren said she had just driven to Eugene from the coast against 60 mile an hour winds. Go, she said, we’re Oregonians.

Exactly. We pull our hoods over our heads and go.

Somewhere up ahead, there’s sunshine.

Seal Rock is more than just rocks

For a writing project, I have been researching the area around Beaver Creek (remember where I got lost a few weeks ago?) outside of Seal Rock.

It’s amazing how many narrow, winding dirt roads there are around here. You could get lost in the trees forever just a few miles from home. On my expedition up North Beaver Creek Road last week, I didn’t get lost, and I managed to navigate the muddy roads without falling off or running into anything. I turned around 7.3 miles in. It felt like the end of the civilized world and the road kept getting narrower and more slippery, but there’s a house out there.
My car was covered with mud from tires to roof. I had to wash it when I got home, despite the cold, cloudy weather. Maybe someday I’ll find the courage to go all the way to the end of the road, but I probably shouldn’t do it alone.
Back on the highway and a mile or two south, I treated myself to lunch at the Diner at Seal Rock. This used to be the Bears’ Cookie Den. The bears are gone, the cookies too, but it’s attractive and affordable, and the food is really good. Open from 8 to 3, it serves breakfast and lunch. On Thursday, the specials were a breakfast pizza and a southwestern hamburger. Last time I ate there, they had marionberry pancakes. I pigged out on a Reuben sandwich overflowing with meat and sauerkraut. This time, I went for the turkey sandwich with cole slaw. Delicious. The turkey sandwich is dressed with a blend of cranberry sauce and cream cheese.
The diner, housed in a white building with blue trim that also houses a beauty salon and a real estate office, is full of light, with racks of newspapers, postcards and handknit scarves near the door, plus a case full of little pies. Country music plays in the background as the ladies who run the restaurant cook and serve the food. They take time to chat and make sure you have everything you need.
After lunch, I decided to check out the Seal Rock store. Bad news. They’re closed.
The Windemere real estate sign says “Quintessential Mom and Pop store. Mom and Pop want to retire. Equipment, appliances, fixtures. Two propane fireplaces.” You can buy it for $225,000. Dating back to 1923, the store still has most of the fixtures and merchandise inside. Wooden floors. Fishing gear, firewood, beer, milk, Coke, homemade tamales . . . It reminds me of where the Waltons shopped (remember Ike Godsey’s store?). I can just picture folks hanging out on the porch, making calls in the old-fashioned phone booth out front, or waiting for the bus.
Of course there’s more to Seal Rock than a restaurant and a store. There’s the rock itself. More than one rock actually, visible at the state park on the west side of the highway. The rocks are huge, with waves crashing against them, seals lounging nearby, and tourists hunting at low tide for shells and agates. It’s a beautiful park with lots of parking and no admission charge.
Once upon a time, when the only way to travel north or south from this area was by ferry boat, Seal Rock was a busy resort town. Visitors came from all over to relax by the beach and enjoy the ocean view. With the coming of the Yaquina and Alsea bridges in the 1930s, the towns to the north and south of Seal Rock grew, but Seal Rock remained a small community, not incorporated as a city, although it has its own zip code.
Today it has a few bed and breakfast inns, the diner and a Japanese restaurant called Yuzen, a post office, laundromat, numerous antique shops and real estate offices, a glass-blowing shop, a fudge shop, several art galleries, including the marvelous McEneny woodcarving gallery, and a surprising number of wooden teddy bears. Once upon a time a chainsaw artist named Ray Kowalski carved life-sized human figures of all sorts and displayed them at a theme park called Sea Gulch. Ray and the park are gone now, but you can still see the remnants of the old saloon, and his descendants are still carving bears and other things to sell.
For most of us, Seal Rock is just the place on the highway where we have to slow down to 40 mph, but it’s definitely worth a stop.
And if you decide to explore up Beaver Creek, remember there are north and south Beaver Creek roads and they go to completely different places. If you opt to drive on past where the pavement ends, do it with caution, with a full tank of gas, and preferably not alone. Don’t go farther than you are comfortable. Don’t do it late in the day. Take your cell phone, flashlight, maps, snacks and water, blankets, dry shoes and socks, and a coat, just in case.
See you in Seal Rock.