Day 8, Sunday, June 9. Umpqua Lighthouse State Park—(6.2/21.6 miles)

Plans change. We woke up with the idea of walking through Coos Bay and North Bend, crossing Coos Bay, and then heading out to the beach to walk up the dunes to Umpqua Lighthouse. This was going to takes us two days. Further, we were going to avoid 101 while we walked through town, so we started out heading south. It might add another mile, but we were determined to hike today.

It was a bit further through town than we expected. After 3.5 miles, we still hadn’t reached the bay bridge. We decided to help break up the walk by stopping for “second breakfast.” This is legitimate because there is a “Hobbit Trail” a little further up. If we’re going to hike like hobbits, we need to eat like hobbits. In our defense, we didn’t have dessert. We saved that for the other side of the bay bridge in another 2+ miles to give us incentive to keep moving.

The bay bridge was pretty scary. Unlike the rest of Rt 101, the state of Oregon did provide us with an actual sidewalk just wide enough for us to walk and use our hiking poles for balance. This was critical because the wind was howling in from the Pacific. We couldn’t afford to look around while we were walking because the cars were whizzing by at 60 mph, the wind was coming in trying to blow us into the traffic, and if we stepped too far to our right, we would fall into oncoming traffic. We were a bit shook up after the crossing. We’d already walked over 6 miles of road and had another 4 miles to go before we made it to the dunes.

We stopped for a cup of coffee and a cookie (our reward for the crossing). While talking to the owner of the coffee shed, he told us we might have several miles of pretty loose sand plus a strong wind in our face if we headed out to the coast. This sounded like a repeat of leaving Port Orford only we’d have hiked over 10 miles before we even made it to the beach. As I’ve said before, I’m not really a beach fan. I don’t mind it for a few miles at a time, but we were looking at over 50 miles. This is when the plans changed. We decided to hitch up to Umpqua Lighthouse.

If we backtracked a couple hundred yards, we had a stoplight where the traffic would periodically stop and get a good enough look at us to tell that we aren’t homeless. Bunny saw an SUV being driven by a woman, turn around, but she didn’t say anything to me so I wouldn’t get my hopes up. She turned around at the light and pulled up next to us. She had her teenage daughter beside her in the front seat.

Sharon and Alicia had taken a good look at us at the stoplight and decided that we weren’t serial killers. Normally, I try to shave when we stay in town, but I hadn’t last night. Sharon told me she wasn’t worried because serial killers tend to be white males and good looking. The scruffy beard helped show that I wasn’t good looking enough to be a serial killer. In my defense, I think I do have the potential to be a cereal killer. In the interest of full disclosure, I knocked off two bowls of Raisin Bran just this morning.

Sharon offered to take us as far as Saunders Lake which is about half way to Umpqua Lighthouse State Park. After talking with us during the drive and hearing our experiences for the last few years, they decided to take us all the way to the park. There might have been a little residual guilt at telling me I wasn’t good looking enough to be scary. Whatever the case, we were very happy for the ride.

It wasn’t even noon and we had covered all the distance we had hoped to cover today and tomorrow. All we had to do was head into the campground and get a site in hiker/biker and then we would have the rest of the day to play. We hiked a short loop around Lake Marie on the way to Umpqua Lighthouse. This lighthouse is still in operation and is a Coast Guard Base with member family housing. The unique feature of this lighthouse is that it has a large enough red light crystal that people can actually stick their heads inside on the tour. Bunny wasn’t interested in going through the museum or lighthouse, so we bypassed it.

The lighthouse and campground are well over 100’ above high tide, so we’re safe from tsunamis where we’re camped. There have been reports of killer whales in the area, so we tried viewing the ocean for a bit before heading back to camp. We didn’t see killer whales, but we did encounter killer mosquitoes back at camp. This only encouraged us to continue our new afternoon tradition of siesta.

We ventured back out about 6 to make supper. By then, one other biker had shown up and set up camp above us. Thomas is retired and lives in Palm Springs. This is only his third day of biking and he’s got another 10 days to make his goal of San Francisco by the 19th. Thomas built a fire and I talked with him for a bit. Bunny had taken Benadryl, so she was snoring when I returned to the tent at the late hour of 8. I engaged in my new past time until my drugs kicked in—Skip-Bo against a good natured dog, a stupid cat, and an evil bunny. Type casting, possibly, but pretty accurate type casting.

EFG