A WEEK IN BROOKINGS, OREGON

Brookings Harbor

Even though the weather forecast says sunshine each day, we always start off with overcast clouds or fog.  Although yesterday the sun was out for several hours, today it did not burn through until about 3 p.m.    You might probably ask why we bother coming to a town that is in economic decline, has fog and drizzle almost every day, and is difficult to access without traveling through forest and canyon.  

Gold Beach Bookstore

Well I guess because it is really beautiful when the sun does shine, and it is not 100 degrees like in Arizona right now, and there are little businesses lurking between the buildings with the for lease signs.   Like the Gold Beach Bookstore which has new and used books, shows art works by local artists, and where we can buy a mocha or espresso to drink while we are searching out some good reading buys.  Upstairs they have first editions in the rare book room and were featuring a book collection that had been purchased from Glenn Ford.  There are also letters and manuscripts.

Bakery By The Sea

We also found a teeny, tiny bakery which is only open 3 days a week, without even a storefront, just a door into a narrow hallway to a kitchen the size of our fifth wheel.  But they are turning out some great sourdough bread, scones, bran muffins, and the most light and delicious ciabatta rolls ever.   Yes, all six of those rolls are for us.    

This last weekend was the Azalea Festival here in Brookings, so we went down to the harbor to take a look at the festivities.   In addition to the usual vendors, there was one young man giving camel rides on his 3 camels.   He assured me that they never spit unless they felt they were being attacked, so I gave the camel a pet on the nose.  They have the softest fur and the longest eyelashes.  Plus, their lips are hairy, they only have lower teeth except for a couple of upper molars in the far back of their mouth, and they are one of the two toed animals.  Really interesting animals.   

But mostly we are in Brookings so that Allan can walk the dogs at the beach.  Early in the morning, the beach is empty and he can let them explore and play on the sand.  They also walk back along the jetty where Allan has seen breaching whales and sea lions.  Then he completes the circuit by walking past the Coast Guard Station and past the boat slips to our park which is just across the street.  

While he is off exploring, I have been trying to finish a needlepoint canvas that I purchased on Bainbridge Island about 6 years ago and have been stitching on periodically whenever we travel.  I have been determined to get it done on this trip and finally it is finished (although it still will need to be blocked, stretched, and made into a pillow.  It was supposed to be a chair cushion, but the chair is long gone, so it will just be a pillow.   

Cape Cod Week

In the last few days we have been exploring the different villages of the Cape, which means driving along through vast tracts of pine and deciduous forest interspersed with homes and business sometimes in little groupings and sometimes randomly placed back in the woods. It does not seem as if businesses have to be in a commercial district as they can appear just about anywhere, such as the Bank of America that was nestled between two residences in a completely residential area. This is also true of auto repair shops, a bookstore, beauty salon, or veterinarian; they just appear among homes along some street that is not in a town or even close to a town. And the towns are not large enough to be considered a town really, they are usually a main street with a few restaurants and gift shops, maybe the library. Very different than the strip malls we see in the west. The beaches are mostly private. Very rarely have we found a public beach anywhere and if we do find one, then there is an attendant on duty to collect the $15 parking fee. For us that is too much money to pay to walk along the beach for a half hour or so to take some photos, so for the most part, we have not been able to get to the beach. One exception was a beach about 10 yards wide with signs on either side reminding the public riff raff to stay on their designated strip of beach. In the first beach photo you can see the signs posted on either side of the public strip of beach. The second photo shows the warning sign which is what we have been seeing all along the shores of Connecticut and Rhode Island as well. . . . . . . . . . . On the day that it rained all morning, we headed out to used bookstores on route 6A and found several books at Parnassas in Port Yarmouth Village, a couple of nautical books at Columbia Trading Co. in West Barnstable, and one or two books in Titcomb's Bookshop in East Sandwich. After lunch we visited a needlepoint shop where I found a couple of canvases to work on this winter. . . . . . . . . . . On another day we drove through Hyannisport and then visited Trader Joes to stock up on coffee and other supplies, before heading to the most fabulous bakery we have seen in a long time called Pain de Avignon which is a French Bakery and the pastries were all enticing, the breads were all crusty, and the Frey's were busy loading up on scones, oatmeal cookies, and raisin pecan bread. . . . . . . . . . . One evening we visited Mary Anne Tessier and her husband Walt at their home for a wonderful dinner on the outside deck, talking about art and where to go while we were here. Mary Anne is also a pastel artist and is a member of our Arizona Pastel Assoc. although we met her originally at the home/studio of Nancy Clauss who was our teacher the first year we lived in Phoenix. On Sunday we saw Mary Anne again at an art fair that she participates in with her Yarmouthport Art Guild. It was fun to see all of her paintings and we really loved her paintings of the local scenery although we liked all of her animal paintings too. Yesterday we headed back up to Provincetown to have breakfast and give Allan a chance to walk way up the beach to get photos of the boats in the water. He also got some photos of plein air artists painting the local scenes. One of the artists seems to have lost control of his paper towels in the wind which is only one of the many hazards of painting plein aire. Tomorrow morning we will be heading off to Foxborough, MA where we hope to take the train into Boston for a look at the bookstores they might have. They also have an Art Museum which we hope to visit. We are looking forward to seeing another new place.