I woke up about 10 minutes before I heard Anna asking if I was ready to do laundry; "nope" I answered. She must have gone to check out the facilities because the next thing she said was that there was no soap for sale there, and if I wanted to use Dr. Bronners; I honestly didn't want to think about laundry yet so I just declined (luckily I have enough outfits to last the trip, I think.) She drove to the gas station to get quarters and I relaxed in my tent writing. When she returned with her coffee, I was in the process of making my breakfast. It was a beautiful morning and I felt like taking some self portraits; or as the kids call them these days, selfies. I decided to wear my Road Tripper patch hat and that got me thinking about where, and more importantly from whom I had gotten it from. Seeming like years ago, but only a few months back; I began this summer with a road trip cross country and back (as most of you know.) I stopped in Colorado Springs to spend a couple days with a close friend Shane; who is in the Army, it was then at the end of my visit when he gave me the patch. (I still have to find his room key to send back...sorry Shane if your reading this!) Nevertheless, here I am on my second roadtrip and so thankful to be. When all was said and done, we packed up and "hit the road" as they say. We had about an hour and forty five minutes to drive before we reached Cape Perpetua. As we stopped for gas in town; I read a sign across the street notifying that they were a "cannabis dispensary" was I back in Colorado? We arrived at the shore as we drove down the 101; it was exhilarating. I have always loved the ocean, and am a frequent beach-goer in the summer. Our first quest was to find Devil's Turn, and it wasn't incredibly hard to do so. We parked the car; and walked down the paved path and stairway to find a natural phenomenon. The water swirled and crashed within the walls of the bank like a person slipping down and around a water slide. Huge waves crashed against the walls and created 50 foot sprays against the land. I had never seen anything like it before. I walked on black pumice volcanic rock carefully in my Crocs before sitting to watch the sprays. They would come every couple minutes, some one right after the other. I would turn away to protect my camera from the carrying most; though it felt great on my face. I could have sat here all day and been perfectly content. We decided to move on and try to see what else the trails had to offer and eventually to find Spouting Horn. Walking down the paved paths with the ocea to my right was calming, I had no where to be but here. I watched as the elongated beaches housed many layers of waves crashing ashore. Passing by Coves Beach was equally gorgeous, maybe I will come back later to blog and relax? We came to the road, and there was still no sign of the Spouting Horn; we decided to turn around and take the car. We hiked back pavement and stairs before reaching our car. We drove in the direction we had just hiked from and noticed our 15 minute hike would have been 5 minutes if we just took the road; oh well. Driving quite a ways on the coastal road, we noticed there were no signs of the trail to the Horn; had we missed it? We decided to drive a little further before turning around; and it was a good thing we did. Spotting quite a few cars parked in a lot, I pulled the car in to park it; there I read "Spouting Horn Trail." Again, walking down paved paths; there was more black rock and blue water crashing in between the cracks. We sat for awhile hoping to see the horn erupt, but it must have not been the right tide to do so; we saw nothing of the sort. It was now around 3 or 4:00 and I had not eaten lunch; I suggested to Anna we check out Luna Sea Fishhouse which had great ratings on TripAdvisor and fried clam strips; my favorite. We drove 6 minutes back into town and parked at the restaurant. It was an adorable little shore town which reminded me of any I have visited frequently in Rhode Island. We entered, and for a moment I wasn't sure if this was a restaurant or fish store. It was a quaint space and the confusion on my face prompted a young man to ask, "inside or out?" It was quite windy today so we opted for indoor seating. Knowing already what I was going to order, I went first; a cup of New England clam chowder, and the fried clam strips please! The chowder was pretty good for being on the West Coast; but surely not as good as the homemade one my mom made the Sunday before I left! The clam strips too were pretty good; with the exception of the over abundance of steak fries served with them; I ate maybe 4 fries but all of the clams. Stuffed to the max, I wobbled to the car in search of a campground. We had spotted one on our way into town that looked like it was beachfront; we decided to check that one out. We pulled up; noticed the price was cheaper than the KOA we had stayed in the night before; and drove around in search of a site close to the water. We found a huge site that was a row over from the beach access route, and nearby to the restrooms; perfect! We unloaded our camping gear and set up home for the night. After, we walked over to the beach and it was one of the widest beaches to the water I had seen. The sand was extremely fine in texture and an off white color. The wind was extremely apparent as I carried my camera, laptop, and towel down toward the water. I had high hopes of sitting on this calming beach blogging while taking photos; that was not the reality. It was a struggle to lay out my towel while juggling so many items in my hands; but I managed. I sat down creating a barrier with my Crocs and sweatshirt to deflect the sand whipping me in the face and burying my electronics. It was about 5 minutes before I decided to run my laptop and camera back to the car, not going to happen. I decided to take a walk along the waters edge; it was a chilling 65 degrees today, but the water wasn't terrible. The tides here were much different than the constant crashing of waves and strength of pulling back towards the sea; the water here barely moved at the edge, with the occasional tide that came past the watermark on the sand. It was easy to walk the edge, or even in the water under these circumstances. I walked quite a ways; thinking, enjoying, taking photos, and enjoying the numbing yet satisfying salt water on my legs. Walking the direction I had for so long was going with the wind; I noticed how much colder and windier it was on my way back to my towel and sweatshirt laying on the beach. As I approached them, I noticed Anna was looking like she was heading back, I thankfully put on my warm sweatshirt and joined her. Back at camp I decided to make some tea to warm up and kill time before the setting of the sun in 50 minutes. I noticed my Jetboil coil looked like it had melted and was about to catch fire! I wonder if that was what happened to the one that so dangerously caught fire in my tent on the trail! I nervously finished boiling my water, and hoped it didn't cause a bigger problem, which it didn't; for now. I uploaded the photos from earlier in the day and we even bought a bundle of wood to keep us warm later this evening. Tonight the sun would set at 7:27; so around 7:09 I asked Anna if she was ready to head back down to the beach. I walked and could feel the cool sand seep in the holes of my Crocs, I sat on a log and began taking photos. It was a gorgeous sunset; though had it not been so cloudy in the distance, it had the potential to be even more beautiful. I sipped my tea occasionally crunching on a grain of sand; and snapping away photos before deciding to head back and start the fire. We both sat rather close to the fire with our laptops updating blogs and editing photos while listening to Iron & Wine and Owl City. It was your typical campfire night, and a relaxing one at that. I decided to take one more walk over to the beach to listen as the waves crashed in pure darkness, there was all but one light solitarily on the open waters in sight. I chose to sleep with the rainfly tonight to try and keep some of the heat in on this rather cold night. Tomorrow we head about 5 hours to Crater Lake!
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