Broadsides: Taking (on) Cannon Beach

Cannon Beach might evoke comparisons with Carmel by the Sea: it’s cute, it’s picturesque, it’s even quaint - and it knows it. There has been an obvious effort made to please the eye with the colorful accents of flowers and other plantings, and its streets are lined—by council edict—with clever modern imitations of traditional Cape Cod clapboard and shingle-beach cottage style buildings. The downtown area has a large number of shops and restaurants arranged around tranquil courtyards. I defy you to pass through town without wishing to stop and explore. Cannon Beach is effective in making its intended impression on the visitor. It seems the trendy tourist destination, and yet clearly is a town with inhabitants who actually use this stuff when the tourists are all gone.

A popular spot on the Northern Oregon coast, Cannon Beach also has a beautiful beach that includes Tolovana Beach Wayside State Recreation Site and Chapman Beach north of Ecola Creek. These level miles of sand have been voted the "best overall beach" in Oregon. You can build fires, but camping isn’t permitted. Birds and intriguing sea creatures inhabit picturesque and dramatic rock formations lying just off shore, including the massive Haystack Rock. A number of interesting historical sites are nearby. Cannon Beach abuts Ecola State Park at its northern end.

It even has a cannon… The name Cannon Beach originates from a piece of wreckage, with cannons attached, that washed ashore nearby in October 1846 from the U.S. survey schooner Shark that sank, in September, at the mouth of the Columbia River. The cannon can be seen at the local history museum.

Two-hundred years ago, the Lewis & Clark expedition traded for whale blubber with the Tillamook tribe on the beach here. Today you’re more likely to see some of the kites, sometimes quite elaborate, which inspired the creation of the annual Puffin Kite Festival. On Sandcastle Day, there’s a sandcastle contest in which castles rarely feature, but anything goes.

CB has a thriving arts scene with many galleries and cultural events. The Stormy Weather Arts Festival, in November, provides exposure to much of the town’s culture. Other events include summer park concerts, Christmas candlelit pageants and carolers, and special events like the Midwinter Mystery Weekend, with workshops, author readings, and signings, including Seattle-area true-crime writer Ann Rule in 2005.

Quick Tips:

•Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce has lots of tourism information. The Tourist Information office, located at the corner of 2nd and Spruce Sts., has plenty of area brochures and maps, including a map showing CB attractions and amenities.
Cannon Beach Magazine. The official visitor's guide. Download or request hardcopy.
Contacts: 503/436-2623, chamber@CannonBeach.ORg.
• Searchable Event Calendar
•Cannon Beach Gazette
•Cannon Beach Area guide
•Public Restrooms can be found at 2nd & Spruce, next to the Legion in Midtown, Les Shirley Park, and at Tolovana Wayside. •Public Parking is challenging in season. There are lots at Gower and Hemlock, Les Shirley Park, Warren Way, Pacific, and on 2nd just past Spruce. All but the first also accommodate RVs.

Best Way To Get Around:

If you’re touring the coast, you’re most likely using a car, and it definitely makes places outside town more accessible. But Cannon Beach itself is small enough that walking it is mostly easy, and the tourist areas are on mostly flat land or a low-grade slope.
•Cannon Beach is mainly divided into three areas, making it easy to navigate. From north to south they are Downtown, Midtown, and Tolovana Park. Hemlock, running the length of town, is the main street.
•Biking is definitely an option, and is permitted on the beach. There are a places renting out bikes, including recumbent tricycles for beach use, such as Mike’s Bikes.
•A shuttle bus cruises Hemlock Street, from one end of town to the other, a round-trip of about 40 minutes operating daily from 10am to 6pm, with extended hours in summer. Find the stops and schedule online here. Hardcopies are available at many locations about town. It’s fareless, with donations accepted.
•The Bus supplies service to other Clatsop County communities.
•Online indexed map (gif)
• Information about trains and other transport options can be found here.

The Warren House Pub is sited in the southern section of Cannon Beach known as Tolovana. That’s partially why we chose it; downtown was mobbed and we didn’t want to fight the crowd. We had hopes but no expectations when we parked in the pub’s lot and headed for the back entrance, passing on the way enclosed outdoor patio seating.

Inside, the décor is English pub ambience with a long wooden bar. Beyond was the dining room with its wooden tables, and arts & crafts stained glass wall sconces; the local touch provided by the nearly ubiquitous large boulder fireplace, and old area photographs. The short connecting hallway had shadow boxed displays of key, lock, and (smoking) pipe collections. It’s low-key and comfortable. A limited view of the ocean can be seen through the window, and deck seating lies beyond the front entrance.

The restaurant serves the usual fare for such a place, mostly sandwiches and pastas. And as this is also a microbrewery they have unique brews on tap.

We started with, what turned out to be a very generous portion, a half-order of Nachos. Corn tortillas topped with Tillamook cheese, sour cream, black olives, and guacamole; a ramekin of chunky salsa on the side. Two types of Tabasco were also provided. I don’t eat nachos very often and I’m not sure what they did to this stuff but these were the best nachos I’ve ever had.

I ordered the "Just because we have to have it" Veggie Sandwich; a wheat bread with cream cheese, tomato, red onion, mushrooms, cucumber, and lettuce. Then they just had to make it. To go with it I chose the Murphy’s Stout. Short of drinking Guinness in a Dublin pub this is the best stout I’ve ever had, with a non-bitter mellow full-bodied slightly sweet flavor, and dense head like softly whipped cream.

My companion had Ken’s Big Boy Burger, with jack cheese and mushrooms, which he declared superior, and a golden brew appropriately named "something" blonde. (I failed to take notes and his memory is faulty on this point.) This too met his standards.

The choice of included sides were chips or pea salad. Asking about the later I was told it’s a mixture of peas, minced red onion, chopped water chestnuts, and blue cheese dressing. We both decided to give it a try and found the contrast between soft and crisp and blended flavors most pleasing. The sandwiches also came with a dill pickle spear each.

Our table conversation was peppered with comments of appreciation, which we passed on to the highly competent and friendly server, while laughter resonated from those by the bar. Everyone was in good humor. This isn’t fancy food, but it is both filling and fulfilling, and served in a pleasant atmosphere. The nachos and beer alone are worth the trip.

Two sandwiches with sides, three beers, and the half-order of nachos came to a total of $30 even.

Open daily 11:30am-1am

Cannon Beach’s name derives from wreckage, including three small cannons and the capstan, off the survey schooner U.S.S. Shark that sank in September 1846 at the mouth of the Columbia River. Washing ashore near Arch Cape, to the north, in October 1846, they were buried and lost until 1898, when Shark Creek revealed its secret. Replicas, with minimal informational historical markers, are mounted at pull-offs both north and south of town. Cannon Beach Historical Society’s museum has the genuine cannon and capstan.

Despite the seemingly obvious nature of the name evolution, the town was actually called other things, including Elk Creek and Ecola (causing misdirection of mail with Eola in the Willamette Valley), until 1922. This mirrors the changes the town went through. A working town that feared it would be "discovered" when the first roads connected it to the outside world (when President Truman visited his trip from Portland took 7.5 hours) has, over the years, become a thriving artist colony, and, embracing the outside world, a tourist destination.

The main exhibit, Cannon Beach: A Place By The Sea, chronicles the evolution, from the formation of Tillamook Head to the present through a series of photographs and artifacts arranged chronologically, with significant world events noted at appropriate spots for perspective. Two antique telephones conversationally report the town’s "current news" and a model tide pool’s drawers hide answers to questions designed to interest kids. The logger up the tree, the docent informs me, is Herman.

A side room holds a quilt collection. One covering a not-so-local issue, the Underground Railway contains instructions for a flight to freedom encoded in the geometric patterns within the quilt’s squares.

Another side room chronicles the history of Sandcastle Day, with a collection of event posters. The accompanying photographs highlight a few more memorable moments, such as the 5 years of the Dragon Parade, cardboard boxes of graduated size simply painted with scales, with a sculpted head atop the largest, and a person hidden within each performing a dragon dance. After the parade, the dragon made a glorious bonfire. Sounds like fun.

My main motivation to visit this little museum came from learning they had a scale model of Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, but by the time I’d viewed the other exhibits, I’d nearly forgotten it. It was just a warm enough day that having both the doors into the museum open was a pleasant way of keeping the interior cool. We’d entered through the rear from the museum’s parking and found the model in a semidetached "room" outside the front entrance, with windows on three sides. At a half-inch to the foot, it was much larger than I’d anticipated, and more detailed.

Located at Sunset and Spruce in midtown, removed from the hectic congested areas of downtown or the beach, the museum has no admission, but donations are accepted. An online Historical walking tour lets you pursue more local history.

Contacts: 503/436-9301 cbhs@seasurf.net
Hours: Wed-Mon. 1-5pm

Haystack Rock crouches in the surf just off shore of the town of Cannon Beach. While the ‘Haystack Rock’ at Pacific City is actually larger, at 318-feet (both are among the world’s largest sea monoliths), the one here is equally beautiful, and, unsurprisingly, one of the most photographed spots not only on the Oregon coast, but reputedly in the whole world.

Once part of Tillamook Head, this 235-foot ‘sea stack’, with its smaller companions ‘the Needles’ nearby, is a designated Marine Garden and part of the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge. Climbing isn’t permitted, nor can you take any living thing away from the tide pools, but gentle exploration is encouraged, just replace anything you move where you found it. And while its interesting to watch an anemone’s petal-like fronds (actually little tentacles) respond to touch by curling inwards, some people are highly sensitive to the toxin they release at that time, so let them respond to other things found in the tide pools, like fish, crabs, sea slugs, or the water driven motion of the kelp. Surprisingly the different varieties of starfish can have markedly different tactile textures; one might feel both slick and rubbery with little lumps like a winter gourd, while another has a rough surface like heavy grit sandpaper, and another... If you’re really lucky you may even find a little Octopus browsing this smorgasbord—it’s all good to him—and not even the mussel’s and limpet’s hard cases or the urchin’s spiny shells can protect them from these clever creatures. Even without such a ‘special guest’ tide pools are fascinating places—just watch out for sneaker waves and the turning tide.

Puffins nest (the only time these birds ever come ashore) on the rock, arriving in March/April and departing in July/August. Bring binoculars for a detailed view. other birds can be seen year round.

Resources for exploring Haystack Rock:
·Interpretive signs are positioned along the beach’s edge.
·Tide tables for Cannon Beach.
·Haystack Rock Awareness Program (HRAP) does summertime onsite informational programs, and have information about the rock’s ecosystem and inhabitants online.
HARP: 503-436-1581; program coordinator, Shelley Parker: parker@ci.cannon-beach.or.us
·The Tide Pool Page from Oregon State University is one of best sites I’ve found covering this area.
·Beach Safety

The beach, voted Oregon’s best, is one of the few you’ll actually find the more stereotypical ‘beach’ activities of volleyball and sun-bathing practiced en masse during summer, although with a mean water temperature of 55° most people won’t spend much time in the water. On clear days you can even see Tillamook Rock, 1.25-miles out, recognizable from the lighthouse perched upon it. More about what to expect on the beach will be found in the On the Beach entry.
·Seasonal lifeguards on duty 10am-8pm, daily June through Labor Day, weekends in May and September.
·Dogs are permitted on the beach only if leashed or strictly controlled.
·Fires are permitted on beach, driving and camping aren’t.

Just north of that eponymous stretch of sand at Cannon Beach a slender streak of water passing beneath Hwy-101, wends its way to the sea. The first left after the bridge is 5th St., the third right along is the road to Ecola State Park, but continuing on a bit you’ll reach the left turn into Les Shirley Park. This small park provides a nice (different from the postcards) view of Haystack Rock, and offers access to Ecola Creek, the beach, and a significant moment in history 200-years-ago. Here, the farthest south the Corp traveled along Oregon’s coast, the Lewis and Clark Trail ends—as recounted in their journals.

It doesn’t taste like chicken.
Reduced to a diet consisting mostly of dog (which Lewis had actually grown to enjoy) a taste of whale blubber prompted Lewis to write (all spelling is original): "It was white & not unlike the fat of Poark, tho’ the texture was more spongy and somewhat coarser. I had part of it cooked and found it very pallitable and tender, it resembled the beaver or dog in flavor." Alerted to a possible new food source by this trade item, William Clark and twelve others set out, January, 1806, hoping to obtain more.

On this beach the 105ft (presumably a Blue ) whale skeleton was found, stripped by local Tillamooks, whose village occupied both sides of the creek Clark named Ecola from the Chinook word for whale. Clark managed to barter for 300lbs of blubber, and some oil. …having Sent this Monster to be swallowed by us, in Sted of Swallowing of us, as jonah's did. They passed the night here, more or less where the park now stands. Whale Park, across the creek, completes the Great Whale’s tale with a sculpture.

We first discovered this off the beaten path park from a roadside sign indicating a nearby historic site returning from Ecola State Park, its claim to a Lewis & Clark connection drawing us in. Finding it too dark to distinguish many features necessitated a return. Once the whale aspect was finally explored my attention turned to the rest of the park. I was pleasantly surprised. This idyllic little park (part of the area’s wetlands reclamation) has plenty of picnic tables (both shaded and sunny), toilets, public phones, and a number of interpretive signs alerting you to, not only the L&C connection, but detailing the surrounding ecosystem as well. The school lying on Ecola’s south bank, next to 101, was the source of children’s laughter, although it can also drift up from Chapman Beach. For some reason this park remains underused, so chances are you‘ll have little competition for its amenities, and a nice respite from the sensory overload of a crowded day.

There’s no fee to use the park, and some parking is available. The free Cannon Beach Shuttle, (an extension of CB’s conservation programs), running every 40-minutes, makes its northernmost stop at the rustic covered bench in Les Shirley.

First you have to get there. From the public parking at the corner of Hemlock and Gower we walked the few short blocks to the beach by following Gower until it bent into Ecola Court’s ramp down to the sand. At first the sand lies in loose drifts and shifts beneath your feet, causing a sideways slide with each step, and then it’s packed sand that firmly supports your every step and the walking becomes easy.

It sometimes amazes me to see so many people on an Oregon beach. Often, in winter especially, these are fairly lonely places but for the ubiquitous person with their dog somewhere down the beach. Except, of course, for weekends when people from the valley come out for the day. Having weekends off is such a rare event in my household that I’m sure my impression of many of these places is markedly different from those whose only coastal experience is on weekends, which would differ again from those who only see them at the height of tourist season. I often crave the near solitude of a winter beach, but I also enjoy sharing the space with other appreciatives at any time. There are a few places that seem not to follow the feast or famine of visitors and Cannon Beach is one of these, there always seems to be a fair number of people enjoying the space. But it’s summer now—tourist season—and today the masses are definitely out in force.

There’s a pair of young girls, one pale, one dark—a striking contrast. They make their way through the low surf to a point—the process of their determination of when to stop invisible to my distant vantage—where they turn about, and holding hands they stop…and wait. Soon a larger wave rolls in to strike them across the lower back. They squeal gleefully, their voices merging with the cries of gulls, and their bodies shake with laughter. They call out to friends to join them. Unheeded, voices lost in the ocean’s white noise, they exit the water to rally their troupe. Soon a group wades out together. A child’s life is filled with possibility made out of the simplest of experiences.

Gangs of bikers roam the beach, racing across the sand. But it’s all amiable, without discord. You’ll pass people carrying these recumbent tricycles, called funcycles, going both to and from the beach, as they’re meant for use only on the sand. I’m surprised by the number of unused and unsupervised vehicles dotting the beach, especially since the rental cost runs about $10 for the first 90-minutes. Occasionally near perfect concentric circles, like oddly placed crop circles, mar the sand’s surface with no rim track leading in or out. We all may be sure we know how they got there, but no one will claim to actually having seen them under construction.

A mother maneuvers a black shark-shaped kite against a deep blue sky while one of her daughters buries the other up to the chin in dry sand. Both of the girls giggle throughout the whole process. When they are satisfied that the one is well and truly entombed they call for their mother to come critique their expertise. This necessitates landing that great fish, and so she reels it in until it lies flopping on the sand. Then they all laugh together and with one child’s face lowered and pressed to the other while both smile up at her—the perfect cherubs—she takes their picture. Did you get it mommy? A day they’ll obviously remember.

Guys in wet suits tote surfboards into the water, but the waves uncooperatively fail to mass sufficiently to facilitate a ride of any note. I suspect they knew this and just planned to hang out together, draped across their boards amid the swells. Better off, for those seeking motion and speed, are those in the surf with their boogie boards, sliding fifteen feet or more each time, and with the short turnaround they‘re almost immediately ready to go again.

Around by Whale Park, next to Ecola Creek there’s a volleyball net. It seems to be up most of the time, yet I’ve never seen it used. Perhaps that’s because this little corner where the beach curls back into town isn’t easily seen from the main portion of the beach. And below Haystack Rock people cluster about the tide pools. The tide is in too far for the really interesting stuff to be exposed, and what is visible are mostly only barnacles, mussels, and a few small far colonizing anemone. Although if you bend low enough you can see tiny crabs scurrying away from you into the deeper shadows of rock-filled pools, while something washed up by the tide burrows back into the sand too quickly to be identified. Being the latter part of August it’s too late in the year to see Tufted Puffins nesting on the rock, they left several weeks back, but gulls and Murres dot its surface.

At the Cannon Beach Historical Society a claim is made that Haystack is the third largest single rock formation, behind the Sugarloaf, in Brazil, and Ayres Rock (it should be called Uluru since it was returned to the aboriginals and they returned to it its proper name), in Australia. Well the Haystack Rock farther south along the Oregon coast, at Pacific City, is taller than this one just for starters. And Burringurra, in western Australia, is actually larger than Uluru, both in height and footprint. And Beacon Rock, in the Columbia River Gorge is reputedly the world’s second largest, with only the Rock of Gibraltar larger than it. And in Mexico they claim Peña de Bernal is the third largest, while Swaziland claims Sibebe Rock as second largest. It’s very confusing.

There’s usually a modifier attached to clarify such matters. The largest limestone, granite, basalt, sedimentary, tertiary, or whatever, rock. These important defining components become detached by those who don’t understand their significance, think that others won’t, and, so, imprecision rules. This irks me. I never uncovered this problem when writing the Beacon Rock piece in my Columbia River Gorge journal, and so I contribute to the problem. This irks me more. I enquired of a State Geologist who merely suggested I use a less specific claim (an obvious one I’d already used in another entry), calling all other claims listed above dubious. I doubt the later. They’re undefined claims, imprecise, and therefore rendered misleading, but they’re not untruths. And what I needed was clarification and specificity—enquiring minds want to know—and to correct past errors. Good enough for government work, huh? So, essentially, I guess, you can believe whatever you want to, and why not…everyone else does.

Regardless, Haystack Rock is amazing. It stands 235ft tall and its generous footprint was once much larger. For a period of ten- to eleven-million years, beginning about 17-million-years-ago, a series of volcanic eruptions caused massive lava flows that spread along much of the coast before coming to a hissing stop in the sea. Of course it didn’t stop right away and parts of the coastline were thrust seaward with each upwelling, most obviously in the forms of headlands, by as much as 25-miles in some places. The sea immediately began its relentless grinding and chiseling, and beaches are slowly created. Ten-thousand-years-ago the Rock was still integrated. Then it becomes more singular, and more noticeable. Now it dominates the coastline here and can be seen from many miles away.

En Route
Most of Oregon’s coastal towns are transected by Highway-101. Visiting is just a matter of pulling over and parking. To explore any part of Cannon Beach you must make special effort by exiting the highway. But to even get to Cannon Beach is a three hour drive from where I live and we don‘t plan to stay over. It’ll be a long day.

Lines on the map reveal, in concept if not appreciated fact, the roads from cities in the Willamette Valley (Portland, Salem, Corvallis, Eugene) are for most of their length a single lane in each direction. While stretches may run straight there are twisted sections to all, and worse on some. What looks like a shortcut on the map might become a carnival ride of a drive, fun for passengers but exhausting for the driver. Some days seemingly everyone in the world competes for that same road space and movement becomes a kind of rush hour crawl. Often there’s someone who, for whatever reason (but mostly out of state plates reveal a lack of confidence stemming from unfamiliarity with the road), drives so slowly they end up dragging a string of bunched up cars. And you can’t pass because on-coming traffic is obscured by the topography of the Coastal Mountain Range. For all that they’re not very tall mountains a mountain road is still a mountain road. Then comes the Pacific Coast Highway (101), and although it runs straighter along its course all other rules still apply. There really aren’t any shortcuts.

There are a couple of ways of approaching such a trip. The first is to drive straight to the destination, arriving in a more timely, if somewhat stiffer, fashion. The second is to break up the drive with occasional stops. We usually do the later. Sometimes all the stops include favorites, sometimes they include places we haven’t seen in years, occasionally we discover something previously overlooked. Oregon provides lots of choices. And every place we stop this day smells great.

One place we tried to stop was Arcadia Beach State Recreation Site, 3-miles south of Cannon Beach, at a point where 101 runs close along the shore. Arcadia, I know from previous visits, has a number of interesting rock formations and an inviting sandy beach. However, it also lacks an empty parking space this day, so we move on. Another good thing about all those choices.

We return
Returning from Ecola State Park one day we capriciously chose to drive through this town, unvisited for years, remembered as a weatherworn place of no particular physical distinction, other than the massive Haystack Rock. And now…well, cosmetic changes are always noticed first, but these reflect how CB is thriving. In fact, a few weeks ago local news did a piece about increased property demand, versus existing structures shortage and rising property values here. They spoke to a couple out of Spokane, Washington, who’d been looking forward to buying property in CB for forever, but seeing their chances rapidly diminish were intent on finding ‘something now’. Something now is quite expensive, and will only get more so. It’s a good thing visiting isn’t.

We want information
Housed in a single-story shingled structure, at the corner of Spruce and 2nd, the Cannon Beach information center would probably make a good first stop in town. Here more of CB’s artiness is evident in the bronze jellyfish topping the railing posts along the side, just next to the public drinking fountain topped with sculptured pelican. Be sure to pick up the visitor’s map among the numerous pamphlets available for local and regional attractions, activities and accommodations. The woman on duty was friendly and very helpful. The next block eastwards on 2nd has a large convenient parking area where the automobile slots abut the rear fence.

In the Park
Immediately adjacent to the Information Center is City Park with the usual amenities, including several tennis courts, and a skateboard park fronting 2nd. It was very crowded the day we explored and unless we’d come prepared to play tennis (we hadn’t) found pretty much everything fully engaged, although the main users of skateboard park appeared to be some sort of drill team having a practice. For those looking for picnic facilities, shade, and lawn, a better choice, or least an alternative, would be Les Shirley Park on 5th beyond Ecola Creek to the west side of Hemlock.

Searching for Haystack Rock Viewpoint
It’s on the pdf version of the Oregon Department of Transportation’s CB map, but isn’t signposted within CB. There’s a place in midtown that seemingly would offer an outstanding view if you could gain enough altitude to see over the overlapping rooflines. Coincidentally this is where the map indicates the viewpoint to be, lying between Hemlock and 101 where the town climbs the most significant hill it has. These streets all have dead end signs, but thinking perhaps that one end was at the viewpoint we turn into one after another in a fruitless search. We tried flanking streets—hoping for a side entrance—again to no avail. We ended up on the highway looping between the CB exits north and south of the indicated position. There’s a turnout along the CB side of the highway in an appropriate position. Maybe, I venture, that’s it. I think if we pull over, exited the car, and step through the trees we’d find the promised view. I think it’s just not developed—yet. I get overruled, we don’t stop to verify. But the exploration convinces me the rest of the map is correct.

Whale Park
This park, at the corner of Sunset and Spruce, isn’t sign-posted, but the sculpture is highly visible from without. There’s no dedicated parking. The small paved area is partly roofed and has the few offered amenities; benches, water fountain, a trash container, and planting box with flowers. Considering the park’s small space it’s crowded with people, mostly just lounging in the shade to escape a relentless sun. (Although somehow they seemed to shift out of the pictures I took.) Centrally located along the edge nearest the beach is the sculpture giving the park its name. A small sign on one side of the whale reads "Endangered species. Please keep off," but there’s no interpretive sign to explain the whale’s significance (see the Les Shirley Park entry). One step farther (and down) and you’re on the northern most spit of Cannon Beach’s eponymous beach with Ecola Creek running at an angle to the coastline just beyond. Two figures, sharply silhouetted by a late afternoon sun, pilot a rubber dinghy along the waterway. I can’t help but think of William Clark and his men on their hunt for blubber. And if you look right, beyond the creek, you can see the point that is Les Shirley Park on the north shore.

This Ain’t Happening
Immediately adjacent to and diagonally across from Whale Park are two of the locations from the Historical Society’s Historical walking tour. I expected to see some hardcopy copy of this at the museum or information center, but didn’t. It does exist online so you can print it and bring it with you. I didn’t and this is as much as we saw.

Going Home
In the late evening reflected light illuminates the ocean long after the sky has darkened. A mouse, some relative of Speedy Gonzales no doubt, whizzes in front of the car to vanish, unharmed, into the dark. And deer graze in the dimly lit gloom along the opposite side of the road as we pass, apparently unconcerned about our presence. We stop at a viewpoint to watch the waves roll in, jagged white lines in the inkiness. It was a long day. It was a great day. And, still, everything smells great.