Dead Whale Closes Oregon Beach
FLORENCE, Ore. — The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department shut down an Oregon beach Sunday because of a dead whale.
Heceta Head State Scenic Viewpoint and the Devil’s Elbow Beach, located north of Florence, will be closed until further notice because of the fin whale carcass.
Co-piloting is hard. I was craving a beer. Also homemade sausage. Lo and behold in Astoria, Oregon there’s a brewery and attached pub that makes its own sausages!
At Fort George Brewery and Public House I ordered a pint of the excellent Cavatica Stout. Heather partook of a Dakota Fanning, a concoction containing cranberry juice and Squirt. We shared the sausage appetizer, a platter of housemade pork sausages accompanied by flat bread, cheese, and mustard. The sausage was fantastic. There were four kinds; a sweet Italian, a boudin blanc, one with caraway seeds and one containing bits of Tillamook cheddar.
Fools that we are we ordered more food. Fort George’s fish and chips is made with locally caught albacore tuna. The dense chunks of albacore were battered and deep fried as usual. I prefer lighter and moister cod in my fish and chips but this hearty version was good, though a bit dry. The portion was huge too; I tried to help Heather with her order, but after my albacore steak and melted cheddar “tuna melt” I couldn’t handle more than a few bites. I did, however, make room for the intriguingly monikered North II – Grand Crüe, a Belgiany strong ale with a host of ingredients including pilsner malt, belgian wit yeast, raw Hawaiian cane sugar, oats, and lemon grass. The combination was delicious and lighter than you’d expect. It reminded me of a sweet-tart Madeira wine. The bartender informed us that North II – Grand Crüe will be available at Portland’s Holiday Ale Fest in a couple weeks.
Tiny Astoria, Oregon (population 10,045) has three breweries (that I know of): Astoria Brewing Company, Fort George Brewery and Public House, and an outpost of the Rogue empire. So that’s a brewery for every 3348 residents.
By contrast, within Portland’s city limits 30 breweries (more than any other city in the world) produce beer for 568,380 people. That’s a brewery for every 18,946 Portlanders.
So by my calculations Astoria has nearly 6 times more breweries than Portland!
I’ll be heading back to Astoria when I can, hopefully for more than a day trip, to try the rest of Fort George’s, and Astoria’s, beers.
Heather has blogged more about our trip to Astoria here: Tank Full Of Gas, Chapter X: Astoria, Oregon
Just a day trip to the coast, but as I’ve mentioned before, one of the few disadvantages of being carfree is that the weekend jaunt becomes problematical.
And not only did I get out of town, but I found a new victim, er, friend to regale with my dubious information and silly stories for a whole day. I overheard said friend planning a day trip to the coast, so naturally I invited myself along (we carfree types have to be assertive).
Naturally I would blog the heck out of the trip, but Heather has done a much better job than I could so I just stole her map (below) and now I direct you to her blog post and her fantastic blog: Mile 73.
For about the past five years, I’ve lived car free.
Based on my conscious decision to jettison the private automobile, I’ve had to make decisions about where I make my home, where I work, and what sort of activities I pursue.
Now it’s second nature; I don’t consider being car free a sacrifice (that’s why it’s car free, not car less). My commute, for example, takes 45 minutes whereas driving would take 10. I don’t think of this in terms of how much time I’ve lost, but rather how much exercise and fresh air and leisure sauntering I have gained. My quotidian priorities have been reconfigured. In general, I’m in much less of a hurry than drivers (and cyclists even, but I’ll save that for another post!).
I do miss, however, the weekend jaunt, spontaneous or planned. Vague memories are all I retain from the last time I went to the coast, or up to the mountain. TriMet’s domain has been my domain for years.
One option I have is renting or borrowing a car, or convincing friends to take me out of town. But it’s nice to not mess with a car, or even mess with the hassle of dealing with a car. A reasonable non-automobile option is what I’m after. Transit has its own set of stresses, but as a long time TriMet trouper, I’m well equipped to handle them. Recently I’ve been investigating other ways to get-out-of-town car free, and have been pleasantly surprised with the number of transit options. (Most of these services don’t provide luggage service, and the schedules are not too flexible, but that doesn’t faze the car free!)
(Of course the first options that come to mind are Amtrak and Greyhound. For car free trips to Seattle, Amtrak’s a great option. Greyhound can get you around the state, but what it does best is inexpensive cross-country trips.)
Columbia Area Transit (CAT)
The Dalles-Hood River-Portland Bus service has just recently begun. This service only runs on Thursdays, but is a bargain at 8.00 each way (bring exact change). Spend a week in Hood River wind surfing and/or drinking beer.
Tillamook County Transportation District (The Wave)
The Wave has direct TriMet-connecting routes to and from Portland and serves much of the North Coast. Pacific City, Cannon Beach, Manzanita, Oceanside, and Netarts are some of the places you can get to on The Wave.
Sunset Empire Transportation District (The Bus)
And once you’ve made it to the North Coast, you can take The Bus (not to be confused with Honolulu’s The Bus), serving the Sunset Empire Transportation District, which covers Astoria in the north through Cannon Beach and Tolovana Park in the south fairly extensively. When I started this project, it was Astoria I had in mind to visit. Now I know how.
TriMet
The venerable TriMet has done an excellent job cataloging other local transit services that connect to TriMet bus and MAX lines. TriMet’s service area is extensive, so it’s certainly possible to make some weekend jaunts (for example to Edgefield) completely within TriMet’s domain.
Mountain Express
Mountain Express bills itself as the affordable, comfortable and eco-friendly bus line with service to Bend, Sisters, Detroit, Salem and Portland, Oregon. Unfortunately as of this writing no buses are operating and the business is for sale.
Maybe the Times has finally run out of things to write about Portland.
By the Beach, a Town Where Winter Also Has Its Fans
ON the drive south from Neahkahnie Mountain toward Manzanita on the north coast of Oregon, the view is startling: broad cobalt skies above shaving-cream waves that ghost toward shore, all complemented by low, purple mountains that bulk in the distance.
The article gives a few real-estate tips to rich people, but then explains the Oregon phenomena of coastal storm watching:
In early winter, the rains arrive, and winter storms; the average annual rainfall is about 90 inches. Even so, many residents say they look forward to the storms and sit on the beach to watch them roll in.
That’s under a Cons subheading, so hopefully the Times audience doesn’t read too carefully and us locals will still be able to get a cheap place to stay on the coast during the winter.