We woke up pretty early lying in the tent listening to a light rain. Jake got the campfire going again though to ward off the chill. It was very foggy, so we went into Yachats for breakfast at a nice little place where locals and tourists seemed to congregate. The cafe makes its own breads and pastries so we started with a big slice of blueberry pie while our egg and sausage sandwiches were being made. Good strong coffee too! We read the town newsletter which had the usual issues with lots of summer tourists, sewage problems, etc. Sounded like many eastern shore towns!
The fog was beginning to lift when we were done with breakfast so we continued south along the coast making Devil's Churn our first stop. The coast in this area is incredibly dramatic with the coast range running right down to the shore. The only sandy beaches were little arcs between rock outcroppings. The tide was coming in while we were there which made Devil's churn - a narrow opening in the rock that the waves rush through - all the more dramatic. It was a good place for looking at tide pools too, although I didn't see much of great interest besides starfish.
A little ways further down the road on the inland side is Darlingtonia, a bog filled with huge pitcher plants, Darlingtonia californica. I think Mickey might have told me about this site. It's a very small park but well worth the stop to see the bog. There were some tiny sundews in among the moss too.
Continuing south, the shoreline changes from rocky to extensive sand dunes. In the dunes, some areas are designated for ATVs and dune buggys, and there were all ages and sizes participating in this sport. Fortunately other areas were off limits to motorized vehicles! See photo of Jake in among the dunes.
Our next stop was in the town of Florence, which also has a working harbor and lots of shops. Having seen boats selling tuna for $3/lb and cod in Newport the day before, Jake was on the lookout for one where we might buy a tuna to take to my Dad's house that night. Sure enough, there was a boat with a big Tuna sign out. After talking to the captain about sizes of fish and where to buy a cooler we headed off for lunch and then to find ice and a cooler. Lunch was a great seafood pizza on the back patio of a little restaurant in town. The cooler was harder to find than a good lunch. After the 2nd try we found one at Rite Aid and brought it back to the harbor. Jake opted for a whole fish since it would be more dramatic. He had visions of grilling the whole thing. The fisherman cleaned it and at the urging of a bunch of kids who were watching a seal swim behind the boat, he dropped the innards overboard for the seal (probably strictly illegal). The seal got most of the guts with the seagulls getting a few scraps. The tuna barely fit into the styrofoam cooler and on picking it up one side of the cooler broke off. Fortunately the ice and fish were bundled into a trash bag so we just used the remaining pieces of cooler as insurance.
With our fish in the back seat, we headed back over the mountains to my Dad's house outside of Eugene. Wallace was the only one home when we arrived but word of the fishes arrival had spread and his son-in-law, Sergei, had been designated to grill it. He took the probably wise approach of filleting it and he grilled it with onions, tomatos and cilantro - YUM! Wallace boiled up the fish head and fins for stock and took the remains out the next day to put as bait by his wildlife camera.
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