I set out this morning from Bandon, OR and fairly soon crossed this bridge. Turned around and went back over it and off on a side road so as to get this shot. Oregon is just full of bridges built in this style with those elaborate columns.
Then drove on up to Florence for brunch at the Kozy Korner since i’ve sworn not to eat at franchise places. I knew i was in the right place when i sat down and then looked up to see the entry of a pack of stocky young men in tee shirts, accessorized with buzz cuts, tattoos, and large gold chains around their white Christian necks. The uniform of the day.
But that wasn’t the high point in the restaurant. That came when i ordered the ladies’ breakfast special, biscuits with gravy, sausage, eggs, and hash browns and was rewarded with a large, deep platter heaped high with two biscuits that must have been at least four inches square each swimming in a lake of gravy that threatened to overflow…along with a thick slab of pork sausage, a couple of scrambled eggs, and lots of hash browns. As i told the waiter, it was all i could do to eat all the way across it to the opposite shore, leaving two-thirds of it untouched. He asked me if i wanted to box it up, but i passed. Late in the afternoon the enormity of my error swept over me when i remembered that biscuits and gravy are real good cold.
The high point of the day came when i spotted the Heceta Head Lighthouse and then an exit to the parking lot. As is usual with lighthouses, there was a hike, but i asked a picnicking local and determined that this one involved no stairs, only a well maintained gravel trail. So i popped the Segway out and rode up there, where a knowledgeable volunteer was waiting to escort on a guided tour into the lighthouse, those who made it up the trail.
Only three stories of spiral stairs to the top, where you can see the lens.
It’s now electrified and operates 24/7, but they’ve maintained the house where the lighthouse keepers and their wives and kids lived until the light was automated.
And then proceeded up the coast as a light rain started. It was intermittent, but to make things right, it resumed as i crossed the enormous old bridge across the Columbia River into Washington. The first town is Long Beach, where i’m staying in the best motel by far (at $79 plus tax) but it’s practically across the street from the Washington State Tourist Bureau, which had closed by 5:20 when i arrived but which will be open in the morning so i can pick up a free Washington road map and press on to Seattle.