Embracing The Savage - Part 9
From a rebirth at Giiwas, I start making my way to the rugged Oregon coastline. Another place no one visits and certainly not in winter. My cup of tea.
It's been close to three months on the road and I'm thinking about heading down the Pacific Coast Highway to Los Angeles where Ali, whom I had met earlier in the trip, lives. That's the end-point I envision, but my eyes now seem perpetually locked onto the horizon dragging this uncertain body further into the unknown.
So much so that I don't even know where I'm going to sleep as I speed through West-Central Oregon and find the coast hiding in plain sight.
I think about setting up camp on the beach, but the tide is ominous. As are the rain clouds. This the Pacific Northwest after all. Back then to the city of Eugene where I can lay aforementioned body to rest. Eugene is known for Nike having some origins here and a long, long time before that, it was first inhabited by the Kʼalapʰuya people.
The next morning I continue down the coast. While most people love sandy beaches, they've never really held any allure to me. This rocky shore though is much more to my liking. I scurry up and down the rocks, finding different vantage points as I go. It's precarious at a few points. This area all falls under the Sunset Bay, Cape Arago and Bullards Beach State Parks but like much of Oregon's coastline, it's pristine.
There is something about this topography and confluence of elements that strengthens the spirit and provides perspective on a person's prosaic pondering.
The region is so isolated that it's impossible to find accommodation anywhere and the campgrounds require reservation. So, I head inland to Ashland, OR, zig-zagging through the Red Wood Forests in California at night. I arrive late and find a crappy motel. No rest though. I venture into the Ashland nightlife to find assorted wealthy wine entrepreneurs and operators. A young East-Asian befriends me and shows me the bizarre underbelly of a posh place like Ashland. Pool halls, smoke-filled apartments with X-Boxes and gold-digging women. His behaviour is righteously erratic so I eventually head back to said seedy motel.
Waking up, it's Christmas Eve. Sunday. The streets are empty as most of the town is nursing a hangover. An Indian restaurant is open though, so I gorge on a buffet. It's a bit disorienting to hang around a place so I hightail it back towards the coast and enter Crescent City, California. An appropriate adjournment to this alliterative article.
