The Oregon Trail--Part VIII--Bandon

October 15
Friday

I got up at about 6 am. It was still dark when I quietly slipped out the door to look for a morning paper and head over to the coffee house. I walked a couple of blocks looking for a paper stand and found one near a resturant filled with locals obviously having an early breakfast before going off to work. If I had felt like an omelet or heavy breakfast it looked like the place to go. After walking a couple more blocks I was standing at the counter ordering a large coffee at the caffiene cafe. It was a small place with large bags filled with coffee beans stacked on the floor next to a big industrial sized coffee grinder. They must have ground a bag or two earlier in the morning before opening. A deep breath of the aroma was enough to prop my eyes open a bit wider.

There was a group of about 7 people sitting at a couple of tables they had pushed together in the middle of the room, and two or three other solitary drinkers were sipping on their brews at other small tables lining the wall. It was a bigger crowd than I expected at 6:15 in the morning. I found a spot near the larger group, and found myself a bit too near a spirited political conversation about taxes and investments in tax shelters. I thought that a bit strange from guys dressed in jeans and work shirts, but I guessed that they were some of the cranberry farming crowd and were probably loaded( with cranberry $$$, or maybe fermented juice?). Being rural they were probably Bush backers too, so I tried to remain as inconspicuious as possible and just kept my face in my paper. I was relieved when they broke up and left to go back to the bogs.

Nancy came just after 7 am and ordered her customary double cappachino, and we split some kind of breakfast muffin. She wrote secrets in her journal, and I did the crossword and we were ready to pack up and get out of town.

On the way out we decided to drive the "beach loop", just to see some of the rest of town, and so spent 20 minutes driving by some developments of very nice homes along the beach area on the west side of town. There were a few new areas being developed and it appeared that alot of the homes might have been second homes for people who lived inland, in Eugene perhaps. It was a cloudy, blustery day, and I hoped that the summers were sunny and the beach inviting to all those who chose to build near the shore. (Ahh, we are so spoiled in sunny San Diego!)

Just five miles north of Bandon is one of the great new golf resorts of the world, Bandon Dunes! I had thought of making a golf stop there, but decided it was too expensive. Instead, we just made a stop at the resort to see what it was like. People come from all over the world to play the two courses, Bandon Dunes and Pacific Dunes, and they have another course in development which should be completed within a year. It is in a pretty setting along the ocean bluffs/dunes with some of the terrain treed, and a good portion of it open to the ocean "breezes". By mid-morning when we got there, the sun had been trying to peak out through scudding clouds and those golfers with the 10 am tee times were lined up at the clubhouse to hit the links. The courses looked very interesting, with the wind a constant factor in the flight of the ball. Another feature I noted was that there are no golf carts allowed and, in fact, no cart paths anywhere on the courses.

There is a big lodge at the Bandon Dunes course with all the amenities one would normally find at a first class country club. Each course has its own small pro shop and there is a shuttle that transports golfers around the resort. Most of the accommadations are two or three unit condo type buildings scattered throughout the wooded area of the resort. It is a wild and remote setting, which must appeal to the many wealthy golfers who come from all over the world to get away from distractions and just play golf. I think the nearest airport is probably in Eugene, which is about a 1-2 hour drive up the coast to Florence and another hour or so inland.

Since there were no golf carts on either course, most of the golfers took caddies to carry their bags and help them find their way around the course. As we walked up to the proshop, there were a few young caddies hanging loose waiting for their golfers to turn up. That's a sight one doesn't see on the public courses where I play golf!!

We watched a foursome tee off on the first tee. With the four golfers and their caddies it looked like an army as they headed down the fairway!!

Back to 101 and we headed north again. We stopped at a viewpoint overlooking the mouth of the Umpqua river. There were alot of dunes, a long jetty and of course, a lighthouse that still was operational. For some reason, I have a fascination with lighthouses. Perhaps it is because most all of them were built in the 19th century, and, even with all the new technologies like LORAN and especially GPS, many of them are still operational. I used to think that the lights were to keep ships from crashing into the rocks, since most of them were built high on a craggy point. But not so. The series of lights down the coasts of both the Atlantic and Pacific were there for navigation. Each light could be identified by its distinctive flashes, and generally could be seen up to about 20-30 miles at sea . They were spaced to provide a method of determining a ship's exact position along the coast. If a ship could see two lights they could triangulate their exact position on a chart. Umpqua lighthouse still has a compound with housing provided for the Coast Guard contingent assigned to the Umpqua river area.

Florence was next up the road, and Nancy had a quilt shop noted on her itinerary so we made a short stop there. The town of about 7-8000 seemed to be mostly businesses spread along the road, with a major intersection with a highway east to Eugene, although I am sure there are probably some nice residential areas tucked away off 101 somewhere. There was a very good golf course there that I wanted to check out but, since golf was off the agenda due to the weather, I didn't even bother to look for it.

We pulled into Newport in mid afternoon. Nancy had a map in her guidebook and a couple of good ideas for inns or B&Bs. After a few wrong turns we finally found ourselves in the Nye Beach area of town and parked in front of a couple old resort hotels/inns. Our first pick was full, but the second, the Nye Beach Inn, had a rm with a vu, so we unhitched and settled in.

Nye Beach was an old resort area and had a very nice and wide protected beach covered with fine sand. The small business section had beachy boutiques, a good ice cream place, a few resturants, and a pretty good coffee/ expresso joint!! everything that we needed! We walked around and checked it all out, and after reading the menus at a few places decided that April's was the place for dinner. It was just down the street from our Inn. After driving so much, we both loved to find places to stay where we could walk to everything!! I went back to the room to relax and watch a bit of TV with a glass of wine, and Nancy decided she would take a walk out on the beach.

I have an impression that dinner at April's was OK, but I don't remember what I had. After dinner we had an ice cream, and were going to stop at a funky outdoor "nightclub" that had a band, but just walked by and peeked in and headed back to our room. One thing I do remember about April's was that one of the waitresses must not have had much sleep that night. We were done with dinner and in bed by 10 pm, and up and at the coffee house before 7am. The waitress from April's was running the counter and making cappachino's before we got there.
I hope she got a nap sometime before her evening shift!

Our next day would put us at the mouth of the Columbia River in Astoria.