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Published: October 3rd 2009
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We headed South on Sunday morning from Tacoma. Stopped at a local joint for breakfast. Andrew had chicken fried steak, Alec chose a patty melt and I had the “I-5 Pileup,” a tasty creation of hash browns, biscuits, and eggs smothered in sausage gravy. It was really good, and I didn’t need to eat again until dinner.
We conferenced on whether to head for Crater Lake (spectacular scenery, but at altitude and likely to be cold) or down the Oregon coast (still great scenery, more relaxed trip, moderate temperatures). Given the title of this post, I guess it’s no surprise that we elected for the coast. We headed West when we reached Portland and camped for the night at a state park. It was a really nice campground, lightly occupied and filled with giant cypresses, ferns, and other Northwest plants. Alec cooked a great dinner—mostaciolli alla carbonara with Caesar salad. We shared a bottle of good Oregon pinot noir, and topped off the meal with port and cigars. Mmmmm.
After a good night’s sleep, we headed South for California, stopping at an Oregon sourdough bakery for some bread and a delicious Marionberry cobbler for that evening’s dessert. Monday night’s
stop was with our friends Marilyn and Gordon. They were splendid hosts (along with unflagging great weather, great hosts are the recurring theme of our trip). Andrew and Alec send a special shout out to their new pal Gordon. Our friends live on the Lost Coast of California, a place of extraordinary beauty and remoteness. Marilyn and Gordon live high on a hilltop, overlooking what seems like their own personal inlet to the Pacific. Getting to their house is an adventure in its own right. You drive for 30 miles over a narrow, extraordinarily winding, sometimes rough road, through multiple elevation changes of a couple of thousand feet or more. As a bonus, there are livestock wandering in the middle of the road, and, in our case, we were arriving at dusk, so it was quite a ride. But it was well worth it, as we were served a terrific meal of barbecued pork, asparagus, grilled nectarines(!), and our Oregon cobbler for dessert, with freshly whipped cream.
After a restful night, we got up on Tuesday and, after some laundry/housekeeping tasks and some quality time with our friends, set off for our next destination, St. John’s Orthodox Monastery in
Red Bluff. Our way there was another adventure. After passing through awe-inspiring redwood groves, Alec drove over the mountains on another twisting road that had us all dizzy by the time we reached Red Bluff. We stopped for gas, then, as we were leaving town, I noticed there were idiot lights indicating both charge and brake failure. As I pulled off the road, I also noticed I had no power steering. Not good. We took the car back to a gas station, but there was no service there, and all the local garages had closed for the day. A good Samaritan tried to help, since it was clear that our alternator, compressor, power steering, and power brake belts were shredded. The problem turned out to be more difficult to fix than just putting on new belts, so we called the monastery, where they were expecting us for the night. The monks came in to pick us up, and loaned us one of their cars to come back to town and arrange for repairs.
It turned out that our problem was a failed “harmonic balancer.” Personally, I’ve never heard of that part before. One of the monks commented that it
could happen “only in California.” At any rate, the mechanic they recommended restored our harmonic balance on Wednesday so that we could continue our journey the next day.
Spending two nights at the monastery was a powerful experience. The monks are such an interesting combination of spirituality and practicality. They have a very strong community and are uniformly interesting to talk to, but most of all they possess an aura of profound calm and strength. Their multiple church services each day require great physical and mental stamina, and they still find time to do the work necessary to feed themselves, maintain their buildings, make candles to sell, and have conversations with visitors. I won’t soon forget the experience of being in their community.
When we prepared to leave on Thursday morning, we attended the first service of the day. We were called to the front of the church and the monks prayed for our safety as we traveled. We left the monastery and headed for San Francisco.
What a contrast. After the extreme quiet and solitude of the Lost Coast and the monastery, we found ourselves in the midst of a bustling, beautiful city. The hills are
Murphy overlooks his domain
Murphy the Jack Russell has his own piece of the Lost Coast amazing, the population seems like a United Nations meeting. It’s a great place, and although I’d like to spend more time here, we have an appointment in LA for the weekend with our good friends Gilmer (Marilyn’s sister) and Steve, with the added bonus of seeing my nieces Annie and Lauren and my nephew Joe on Sunday. We’re really looking forward to it, so on to LA.
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Ursula
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Pictures
Your photos are lovely. Thanks