November 14-15, 2016 Blanco State Park, Oregon

Still raining, high 50’s. We drove south all of 45 miles to Blanco State Park. It is right on a cliff over the ocean in a grove of huge sitka spruce. Looks kind of like a redwood forest except the trees have skinnier trunks. It is a cold stormy night, we can hear the wind in the trees, the surf and rain on the roof. I made bread, John made butternut bisque and we are cozy inside.

Yup, 100% chance of rain for awhile. We are enjoying not having a schedule and relaxing.

Our drive down- we crossed the Coquille river into Bandon by the sea, drove past old town-we’ve been there a couple times before. It is a fun place to stroll around in the sun, but not the rain. Then past cranberry bogs. Bandon is the cranberry capital of the world. Ocean spray processing plant is here. Can’t leave out the place whith the huge chain saw scupltures. We will have to go back and see that. It is so humid here some of my needles started to mold. In an effort to keep the rest ok I have them laid out under the fan of the heater. They are ok so far. None of the baskets molded, but I am not taking any chances.

The current masterpiece is coming along. I am beading it. Will have to rearrange the bears.  The bus at Blanco State Park.

There was a little bit of sun today. We rushed out to see it. Here is the Cape Blanco Light house.  A shot of sun on green with blue sky and a cool cloud.

We hiked down to the beach. John in a sitka spruce grove that most of the campground area is in and looking down at the ocean on the way.

Flowers seen on the beach, a couple cool patterns on sea shell fragments. A round bunch of barnacles, a sea shell having a bad hair day, the sign says Tom Spano- A shy smile, a twinkle in his eye- waving to People-who went by.  Nice memorial, another sign on saw that says Been there Saw that.

Then a really heavy rainstorm came in, high wind, hail etc.  We headed back. We had our car broken into at the last camp ground and they took John’s day pack and my bike pack. John’s good rain coat was in it, he found out that this coat is not water proof, he was soaked to the skin. So we hoped into the car to sight see. John humored me and took me to some of the eclectic places I wanted to see. The Sixes Grange that seemed to have every business in the town of Sixes- saw cool crafts.

I wanted to see if the rock shop had any beads.  Besides the rocks were on sale. What I found was this huge display of very intricate pine needle baskets. Myrna made baskets for 30 years and made 3,000 of them. They were really good.  Myrna has since passed away but one of her business partners Sandy showed me around. They mostly had beautiful wood products. Sandy showed us the resin room where they applied resin to the wood pieces.  They set the wood pieces on top of a tin can, poured resin over them, when they dried they took the can off , flipped it over and did the other side, then sanded them. Looks like they did all 32 years of their resin work here.

Our next stop was Somthing Awesome. It was all these really cool chain saw carvings. John with the Alien out front, a three headed dragon, an angel chair and a saytr. Nice work. There was no one inside the shop so we did not see the artist.

John barely escaped this praying  mantis wood carving.  An work in progress. We were in the world famous Langlois. Not sure what it is famous for, but it has a lot of sheep ranches. It ‘s nick name is Little New Zealand because of the sheep. There is this Wild Rivers Wool Factory outlet store. When the sheep herders could not get a good price for their wool they used to throw it away. A couple women started a shop that spun, dyed the wool –sold it and made products from it . Also taught classes. Now there are a bunch of wool artists in town and they show their works at the outlet. I got this hand felted elf christmas ornament for the bus there.  A piece of stained glass in the window of a gallery that was closed. They also sharpen knives and John brought all our knives to sharpen. We will go back, he can get his knives sharpened and I can look at the art.

General precautions at Cape Blancl Beach and a sign telling us we are in a tsunami zone and it the earth shakes, run! The Spoon in world famous Langlois had another sign on it that said Greasy Spoon-should have photographed it. Last but not least we went to the Hillbilly Trading Post thrift shop. It was even run by a hillbilly. Saw this coat there.

Sunset on the way home.