Warning Dangerous Bar. July 3. Day 12. Part 1

Dear Trail Friends

So here I am in Depoe Bay at the bar (which allowed me to bypass the very long waiting list for a table, just as I did in Cannon Beach when I last treated myself to a restaurant dinner) at the Tidal Raves restaurant - sipping my Tsunami stout with lemon, and starting on an outstanding little salad with baby shrimp, curried almonds and cranberries. 

Photo 1 is the view out the restaurant window (when I swivel my seat around), photo 2 is the salad. 

 

 

I had quite a lovely day, starting at 5 am on the   beach just beyond the campground (and beyond the unspeakable 'D' river which by the way dunked not only my iPhone. It also dunked my Anker battery recharger, which I admit was dying anyway and due to be replaced, but I was horrified last night when it did bizarre things and could neither charge my iPhone nor be charged. By this way the afternoon it had partially recovered - it could be charged but still could not charge. I got the great idea that maybe something was damp in the connection and it was shorting out. I set it up so it was upside down and any water could drop out from the connector. And do you know what? Just before I left for dinner, it started to work again as a charger. Is that wierd or what? Unfortunately after dinner it will turn out that it never works again.)

So who knows where I was going originally with that sentence. I had considered sleeping late and timing my arrival at the rising tide near high tide (so I'd have more chance of getting a ride with fishermen/crabbers, if I understood right) but I like getting up early and hiking early too much to wait for the tide. 

I had a quiet solitary walk of about 3 miles to the end of the beach. I could see Salishan spit across the water, not far away, and I could see the bay I would have to roadwalk around to reach Gleneden Beach (I love that name - it makes me think of my brother in law Glen, who is no longer is his body, living in a paradise called Glen-Eden. Glen's paradise might or might not have Ac beach, but there would be lots of laughter and good jazz music, there, I'm sure of that.)

But I am getting ahead of myself. Photo 1 is a group of rocks on the beach in the dawn light. I was completely alone on the beach for the first half hour or so. An amazing experience to engage with the ocean in solitude. Later I met an occasional very quiet beach walker. 

 

Interruption - just got served dinner - herb crusted Pacific Rockfish with shrimp-caper sauce and smoked salmon potato cake. It also has veggies tucked in between the potato cake and the fish. So here is photo 4. 

 

Where was I? At the end of the beach after very relaxing 3 mile hike, heading up toward the road. I saw the sign in photo 5 and thought it was a joke - I read "bar" to mean like the place I am sitting now, where people drink. Then I realized that bar has another meaning - some kind of body of land near water. So it was probably serious.  Too bad. Love the idea of wearing a life jacket when you go out drinking. 

 

Once I made it through the dangerous bar (without a life jacket, and without the delicious Tsunami stout I am sipping right now at this bar) and headed up toward the road, I saw a young man beside a parked truck taking a photo. He smiled and said hello. I paused to take the same photo he did. (Photo 6)

 

Then I turned and asked if he was headed south (he was) and if he maybe would give me a ride to the next beach south and spare me a road walk (he would). So I climbed into the big truck beside one of the sweetest men in the world. 

George is a retired airplane mechanic (like Chris's son Peter). But after retiring, he went back to work for a few more years working on elevators. Meanwhile he has a passion for lighthouses. He drove the whole east coast visiting lighthouses, and now he is doing the west coast. 

To be continued in: Warning Dangerous Bar. July 3. part 2.