Sunday, May 9, 2010

Along Highway 101--Oregon and California Beaches and Towns


Here's a family taking a few pictures on beach near Coos Bay, Oregon. The area is known for its large sanddunes and unspoiled terrain.

A few shots of some Pacific landscapes and assorted near-by towns that I took last month on seperate trips in Oregon and Northern California.

102 comments:

  1. greaat shots thanks love the coast line to and never tire of looking at it :)

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  2. Me too Heidi. Hard not to take pictures of such vistas. Glad you enjoyed this!

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  3. The most serene hours I ever spent were in Marina, California, just north of Monterey. A bit south of here, but equally beautiful. Lucky you to make this trip.

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  4. Very nice Doug - you see some of these boats and they are like a secondary house.

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  5. Within the architecture that is a give in seeing.

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  6. This looks look like Cape Cod with palm trees! Where they came up with some of these names I guess would have been from the fisherman...

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  7. Very picturesque...that Inn, would certainly have a great view with no doubts.

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  8. Doug this reminds me of Newfoundland...I kid you not.

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  9. I wouldn't be standing there too long either. It looks as you are right at the edge. Gives new meaning to rugged!

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  10. I did feel lucky Joanna. Spring is a good time to see these parts of the West Coast--provided its not raining in sheets!

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  11. I could live quite comfortably on one of those Jack.

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  12. That is just a sample Jack. The place is very European in style.

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  13. Wish I had a clearer day. A lot of tour and commuter boats cross that stretch of water.

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  14. Got this shot just as the sun came out after a long rain. Hard to take a bad picture in this part of town.

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  15. I think of New England, Jack. Very Maritime Canada as well I'm sure.

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  16. The picture really doesn't do justice to the steepness. Did I mention the movie "Vertigo" as well? ;-)

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  17. It really is Mary Ellen. I loved revisiting these places.

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  18. There is something about dune buggies that always reminds me of Charles Manson, they are thus stigmatised transport I suppose, although I am prepared to believe that not every driver is a homicidal madman bent upon race war and getting secret messages from The Beatles....but then again, who knows?

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  19. Nice seascape Doug with dune grasses in the foreground stabilising the sands and reducing storm erosion no doubt. Excellent.

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  20. No getting pissed on the beach......oh well spose you just have to paddle sober

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  21. The loneliness of the long distance fisher.....looks like plenty of opportunity for a bit of solitude here Doug....interesting liminal environment.

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  22. I remember a hells angel in a bar in San Fran telling me that if I was ever going to get arrested in that part of the world I should try to make sure it is in Sauselito, where apparently the breakfast is much better.
    I never put this local guidance to the test, but have no reason to doubt the word of an apparently well meaning stranger.

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  23. Was this taken first thing on Sunday morning Doug, or is there often so little traffic around?

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  24. Great view across the bay Doug, lovely shot

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  25. I recognise this view Doug from my visit to City Lights Book Store and I think its close to where where Marilyn Monroe married Joe DiMaggio if I recall correctly?

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  26. Great lighthouse, I love lighthouses and think it is a crying shame that they have all now been decomissioned...I used to want to be a lighthouse keeper when I was a kid. Never the most sociable kid in the street I suppose.

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  27. What a fantastic natural sculpture ...I really like this one Doug a great photo.

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  28. I have taken photos of these marvelous structures in various places myself Doug. There is something very romantic about them standing in the teeth of the tempests and shepherding those in peril upon the seas to a safe haven. Their lights piercing the darkness they somehow are symbolic of the resilience of human beings against the vast power of nature and as such are reassuring I think. This is a great specimen

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  29. Verigo indeed, don't blame you for not hanging about there after you grabbed the shot Doug.

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  30. Really like these succulents (I presume)....wouldn't find these in this neck of the woods, they are really lovely.

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  31. LOL! I hadn't heard of the Charles Manson/Dune Buggy connection, AA, but they are rather dangerous--fellow I know had a son who flipped over in one and broke his back (he recovered) so frequent dune buggy activities might just attract the sort of maniacal element to avoid while on a seaside vacation.

    Forewarned is forearmed.

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  32. Quite a lot of storms at this end of the Coast, AA. Coos Bay itself gets about 65 inches of rain a year. Points northward get up to 85 inches! The hardest rain I ever felt was south of here in a town called Brookings/Harbor. Absolute monsoon conditions. Shirley and I were soaked in a matter of seconds just running from a restaurant to the car.

    That night the Pacific sounded like it was coming right up the beach. I half-expected a Japanese fishing boat to run aground near our hotel.

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  33. Sadly true, AA. All of the Oregon Coastline has public access, which is the bright side. You can even bring your dog to the beach--unless he or she is a drunkard.

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  34. Its vistas and bright sunny days like that which makes me wish I was a better fisherman, AA. Truth is I really don't have the patience for it--although my dad gave me many opportunities to appreciate it. I'd rather just scan the beach and watch for bird-life and the big commercial boats plying in and out of the harbor truth be told.

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  35. If anybody knows about jailhouse cuisine in my old neck of the woods, it's likely a Hells Angel.

    Speaking of jails and Sausalito, your anecdote reminds me of the town most famous resident from the past, a one-time San Francisco brothel madam named Sally Stanford (1903-1982).

    Her Jones Street Cathouse in San Francisco reputedly "hosted" many a delegate from afar during the 1945 United Nations Charter Convention. A singular contribution to peace in our time I'd say!

    Sally later was evicted from San Francisco during a crackdown on vice. She relocated her brothel to Sausalito and later became a town celebrity. She also made the smooth transition from panderer to politician as this clip below proves.

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  36. You have an excellent memory AA! This part of North Beach is just a block down from that famous bookstore.

    Go a bit further down Columbus Avenue and you'll find the Peter and Paul Church where Marilyn and "Joltin' Joe" were married in 1954. Joe wanted his bride to be a content North Beach housewife. For some reason Mrs. DiMaggio did not want to spoil a red-hot career in movies that was just peaking. The marriage lasted little more than a year, but they reunited at least as friends a few months before her death in 1962.

    It was DiMaggio who organized her funeral--and kept many of her Hollywood friends like Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack from attending. He also had a standing order for a single red rose to be placed by a florist at The Forest Lawn Cemetary every week.

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  37. Very perceptive again AA. Yes, I took this on a Monday morning as a matter of fact. I really needed the afternoon or a weekend's early evening to do justice to this part of town.

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  38. Thanks. The Bay looked amazingly calm that morning.

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  39. Well, sociability has its drawbacks AA.

    I think lighthouse-keeping for a season would be great. I could catch up on my reading or writing. Jack Kerouac used to be a fire-spotter in a Forest Service Tower in the near-by Redwoods Areas from what I've read.

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  40. Thanks again. Yes, this one was literally right next to the place we parked. There's a Youth Hostel there as well, and I imagine it took quite a lot of volunteers to lug this thing up from the beach in some manner.

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  41. Well put. I think that man vs. nature is really a big part of the draw of these citadels, AA. I find I always think of the ships that were lost before these beauties were installed and manned. Many go right back to just a decade or so after the Gold Rush.

    Pigeon Point was established in 1872.

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  42. Perhaps not exactly Land's End, AA, but nerve-inducing enough.

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  43. Yes, my trip was well-timed--April is the best time for coastal wildflowers. I think the blooming white ones are called "Johnny Jump-Ups", which sounds more like a Mafia informant to me than a flower.;-)

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  44. Yes, the terrain looks very similar. The Cape Spear Lighthouse must have been a friendly site to those mariners crossing the Atlantic. Thanks for the link Jack.

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  45. Wow, now that's what I call a beach! I love bleached grasses!

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  46. Lovely drop of sand there a tad dry for making castles!

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  47. There's something about messing in boats even if like me you can't swim!

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  48. What a lovely shot of a lighthouse I'm not sure there are any left that have to be manned are there?

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  49. Oh doug, if only you knew how I covet that piece of driftwood for my pond. Wonderful, what do you reckon the postage would be, second class of course? ;-)

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  50. Oh yes, poor Rebecca such a nervous creature!

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  51. How beautiful and the red blooms have yet to open!

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  52. Thank you for sharing these photos, doug. Sorry the alert didn't show up for me.

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  53. They are quite hearty plants--I suppose they would have to be.

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  54. Yes, Cassandra, the Oregon Dunes are really a site to behold---although this one area can't really do the area justice. In in some places they seem more like a series of vast white deserts than anything near the ocean.

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  55. I love this stretch of the coastline Cassandra. It's very unlike most of the Oregon Coast--not as rocky and steep. And the dunes invite walking about.

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  56. It is an inviting life I think, living on a boat--as I said in an earlier post San Francisco Bay isn't always this calm. The people who go about in sailboats around the Golden Gate really have to be keen sailors.

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  57. This is what comes of showing up far too early to take pictutes on a weekday I'm afraid. It looks like a Georgio DeChircio painting I know, but trust me Sausalito is much busier most of the time.

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  58. The Transamerica building went up in the early '70s.

    Many old-time San Franciscans organized protests when it was approved by the city council--they especially didn't like the fact that the building was so tall and had a peaked spire--they thought it would somehow ruin the downtown skyline, make it look too New Yorkish.

    Of course, now its the crown jewel of the financial district. The view from the observation deck over the city and the bay is a delight (on a clear day that is.)


    This North Beach area used to be where the Barbary Coast was back in the Gold Rush Era. It's a little less rowdy now ;-)

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  59. Pretty much all lighhouses are automated as far as I know. They useed to let tourists into some of the decommisioned ones--I've been in a few--but the state budget in California is so far in the red they have shut most of these tours down. A shame--especially for the school kids.

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  60. The best overlook I could find.

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  61. As AA commented, there is something reassuring somehow about those lighthouses. And also that you can look at one like this and really not be bound by the ordinary geography of an area.

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  62. Hard for a poor soul like Rebecca to be anything but a nervous creature, with the nasty Miss Danvers scuttling about Mandeley, always undermining her confidence and trying to get her to jump out a window or something.

    Really a sad reflection on the available domestic staff of 1930's England if you ask me.

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  63. You have an excellent eye for flowers. It was nice to be on that stretch of coast right about the proper wildflower time.

    Thanks for your comments.

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  64. LOL! The postage would be the lesser problem...finding a proper shipment box would be far worse!

    You might have to hire pirates to come ashore and steal this beauty. I understand Sir Francis Drake was once famous for taking the odd trinket or two from Spanish settlements out this way along the Pacific.

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  65. The housing prices are quite high in this area, but I have to admit you see why from this picture.

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  66. It is surprising the range of colour as grass changes, from green through to purple, to the bleached look.

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  67. It is certainly a lovely area. Where are the crowds of people?;-)

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  68. I would imagine navigation is an art in itself!

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  69. Hahaha, and on chance of a bit of peace and quiet, I went and booked my holiday there! :-)

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  70. Strange, because the spire at the top helps this building fit in quite well. I bet you didn't walk up to the viewpoint?

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  71. You could wrap it in brown paper and label it Tyrannosaurus Rex!

    I fear that when the pirates saw the love in my eyes, they'd push the price up. Driftwood is mother natures own art!

    That Sir Francis gets everywhere!

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  72. Yes agreed and they make a lovely photo shot!

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  73. Hahaha, there seemed to be a lot of staff when Rebecca arrived looking like a drowned rat, but disappeared when needed. I'd have told Mrs Danvers where to get off!

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  74. Thank you.

    Lucky you to hit it at the right time for that photo shot, doug

    And thank you for sharing!

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  75. Thanks Cassandra. I suppose I owe this family group a royalty check or something. :-)

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  76. Better warn you then--there's a six dollar toll charge to cross the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco from the Sausalito/Marin County side on weekends.


    With the Bridge itself more than seventy years old, you'd think it would be paid for by now. :-)

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  77. You're right. I have been up there a couple times, thankfully when the elevator, or lift, was up and running. I never understood the controversy about the building myself. One of the other interesting things is that the Transameria Building has giant shock-absorbers in the foundation to withstand a devastating earthquake.

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  78. I'll bet you would!! The modern emancipated woman would have had Danvers with her bags packed in front of the gatehouse, thumbing a ride to the rail station, with that parvenu Mr. Favell right behind. She got a bit singed at the end of the original film at least.

    And,yes, what is the point of all that staff if they are off Morris Dancing or hanging about down at the local union headquarters the moment Rebecca or Max's back is turned?!


    Dame Diana Rigg, whose face graces my wallpaper this month, played a more sympathetic version of the creepy housekepper in a version of the same story, circa 1990.
    Not as good as the Hitchcock/Selznick classic.

    Coincidentally, from the 1940's on Sir Alfred Hitchcock and his wife had a "getaway" house not many miles from this spot in a town called "Scots Valley" which overlooked the Pacific at the seaside resort of Santa Cruz. They actually found the house via a recommendation from Joan Fontaine's family who lived not far from that area. Portions of "Rebecca" were filmed down the coast a bit in Monterey. Here's a bit of background:


    http://www.footstepsinthefog.com/intro1.html

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  79. This is true. Probably wind up in some natural history museum.

    Seriously, this is the biggest stump of driftwod I've ever seen. And as you say, it has an aesthetic quality that doess draw the eye.

    There an interesting historical controversy about where Drake's ship, "The Golden Hind", made landfall about this area circa 1579 or so. Some say San Francisco Bay--which wasn't officially "discovered" by Europeans until an inland expedition in the 1770's. (The Native Americans knew where it was all along of course.) The entry point of ther massive bay is apparently hard to spot from the ocean.

    There's a seperate oval-shaped bay north of the Golden Gate/San Francisco called "Drake's Bay". It actually has white cliffs similar to Dover, and most historians think he did his repairs there before heading up the coast and the long trek across the Pacific. But no certain evidence has ever been found and the entries in the crew members journals are inconclusive.

    We do you this for certain--had Drake dumped his plundered Spanish gold for driftwood, he would have been popular with ornamental garneners and very unpopular with The Queen.

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  80. I think every town should have a 'vice mayor' just like Sally Stanford who is clearly a woman who understands both mayoring and vice equally well, making her the perfect candidate for the job no doubt. Sausalito sounds a rather civilised place that honours its historic peaceniks in a proper way I think. Thanks for the video history and brief insight into this local politician and businesswoman Doug

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  81. Yes , it does have a good peace "vibe" as it were. One of the nicest tings about towns like Sausalito and Santa Cruz is that people are not so puritanical as you find down in southern California or in the inland valleys. The area is one of many on the west coast that reflect a counter-drift in America toward social justice above priggishness and bellicosity.

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  82. Beautiful pictures here. I love the beach and any photos of a beach grab my eyes.
    For some reason, I didn't get this in my email. Sorry.
    The wildflowers are gorgeous.

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  83. Yes, I feel drawn to beaches Jacquie. Something about the fresh air and the feeling of being on the edge of land I think is pretty primal inside us all. Thanks for your comments.

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  84. Those and I find it very calming. I can think better at a beach, and the wilder the waves, the happier I am.
    I'm a water and moon baby anyway, so maybe that's also part of it.

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  85. Youre right Jacquie about the calm--and the waves are magnificent on this stretch of coast.

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