August 18

I’ve decided a benefit of traveling in an RV far away from home is the ability to have bad hair without regret or fear of being seen. Every morning I tell Kari how lovely her hair looks, then I take a gander in the mirror at my thinning gray “mane”…let’s just say we’re getting good use of the hats we brought. Just another Two Against Nature battle.

I made breakfast-eggs, fruit, and cinnamon raisin toast, all from the farmers market. We hit the Oregon Coast Trail for another amazing 8 mile hike. The trail follows the coastline and though I keep saying it, it’s just spectacular. We passed through Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge, 2 state parks, and a gorgeous botanical garden highlighted by a Japanese garden.

About 3.5 miles up the beach was Simpson Reef, an area known for it’s wildlife. It was teeming with harbor seals, northern elephant seals, steller sea lions, California sea lions, and a lone gray whale. It was very cool, hundreds of the critters playing in the water or lounging on the rock stacks. Their barking was deafening, we heard it long before we hit the reef area. My new binoculars came in handy on this perch. There were also a couple park naturalists with nice monoculars set up. As you may guess, Kari chatted em up, obtaining their entire life history, medical infirmities, vacation plans, alma maters, and home remodeling projects in just under 180 seconds.

We headed into the metropolis of Coos Bay for dinner and a concert. Dinner was at 7 Devils Brewing Company. The highlight was the fried oyster appetizer, they were scrumptious. Kari had a fried albacore tuna dinner and I had another tuna melt-apparently this is the area for albacore tuna so we’re getting our fill while we can.

We finally found some live music. I’ve scoured a bunch of coastal venues and the schedules of several bands touring the area and have yet to find a match for any national acts. Tonight filled the void a little. It was Coos Bay’s “Music on the Bay” series and they had the Portland All-Star Blues Band. The venue was Mingus Park, which was a really cool city park. It too had a Japanese garden which was lovely. Life is good when you’re jammin on live tunes:)

Another successful day…then again, how exactly could one screw this up?