Gold Beach to Cape Blanco to Lincoln City to Seaside and Another Sunset

We slept with the sliding door open onto the balcony, and awakened to foggy morning light and the sound of ocean waves. The Gold Beach Resort’s complementary continental breakfast saved us some time, and soon we were headed north, up the coast, on highway 101.

I navigated as my husband drove us around Nesika Beach, where I lived for three years (more than forty years ago), and tiny Ophir where I attended Ophir Elementary School. Everything was much, much smaller than I remembered it. The school that had seemed so big in my mind was tiny. And, sadly for me, it was closed! Not because it’s summer; it’s just no longer in use. These southern Oregon coastal communities seem almost deserted compared to the bustling towns on the northern coast.

The fog began to lift a bit as we approached the silent, ghostly form of the Cape Blanco lighthouse. Cape Blanco is the westernmost point of the continental United States.


Wildflowers brightened as the sun struggled to overcome the fog.




The very well-kept Cape Blanco campground played host to only a few campers, mostly motor homes and trailers. I didn’t see any tents. Very dense foliage between campsites made these sites feel much more private than most public campgrounds.

We made our way down the curvy one-lane road to the beach. Does a ladybug qualify as a wildlife sighting?


In a rocky bank against the beach, two swallows worked, busily building a nest – in the rocks! I thought swallows liked trees and high places. This nest was only about ten feet off the sand.




In Lincoln City we looked for a room for our second night, but we found "no room at the inn” -- none of them. The town was rumbling with motorcycles and filled with folks wearing Harley T-shirts, as well as most of the residents of Salem and Portland who came here for the week-end to escape the heat.

Surely, we thought, we could find a room a little further north. Not so. Not for less than $225 per night anyway, so we kept traveling north. The hazy afternoon melted into a bright sunset which we thoroughly enjoyed as we relaxed over fish and chips at a window table in the restaurant of the Shilo hotel in Seaside.


Arriving at home around midnight, the two days and one night we had spent on the road, filled with so many different sights, sounds, tastes, environments, elevations, climates, and, temperatures, seemed more like a week-long vacation. But the best part was waking up in our own bed back at home in the morning.

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