Monday Morning: Yachats, Oregon

This has to be one of the most beautiful spots on the entire West Coast. The drive up from the southern border of Oregon was spectacular, often breathtaking…

We left our wonderful digs in Crescent City at around ten, after a leisurely breakfast and a grooming session for George in Rande’s studio. A lovely road north...


leading, after a few miles, into Oregon. We drove through tree-lined hills to begin with, but then stayed close to the coastline, passing through a number of small towns until we reached Coos Bay—and realizing when we got there that we had shot past our intended turn of the highway for a visit to the Cavalier breeders where Rande had found both Mia and Maddy. U-turn, then, in Coos Bay, and a confusing trek through freeway interchanges to the side road we had missed.

We were glad we didn’t miss the opportunity to visit with Lorna (here she is...)


... her husband James, and their huge family of Cavaliers. You'll find them at their website, Cavalier Lovers


Greeted as we drove up by a half dozen of them bouncing up and down at the window, we were astonished by the sight of dozens of these wonderful creatures as James invited us in to their compound—it can be described as nothing less—and Lorna came out from the house with another armful of their close relatives, the “ETs”, or English Toys. (These are more snub-nosed than their Cavalier cousins, like George.) Anyone who has owned this breed, as we have done for twenty years now, knows that there is no more charming, loving and endlessly effervescent creature in all of dogdom than the Cavalier, with its feathered tail in constant motion and its mouth a permanent smile. And cute!


(Click on this one.  And forgive my hyperbole, I’m more than a little biased on this topic.)

After admiring the adults and the growing puppies, we visited the nursery, where a three-week-old litter of six was busy feeding with a mother who proved patient enough to allow us to pick her babies up and fawn over them with embarrassing enthusiasm.



Ellie, ever the perfectionist, had already picked out the perfect future companion for George...

... but the time is not right for us with the remodel in progress. However we do know where to come when we’re ready. These dogs are obviously loved, and live in the kind of happiness that radiates infectiously to anyone around them.

George, of course, as is his wont, remained somewhat aloof from all the excitement, but did enjoy his own romp with a ball on the spacious lawn at the center of the compound. He was unimpressed by the puppies, of course—or, if he was, took care not to show it—but was generally well-behaved and courteous. We wondered how he would adapt to the arrival of a puppy in a world that he has happily ruled unchallenged for most of his nearly seven years.

We said our goodbyes to Lorna and James and paused for a quick sandwich in picturesque Coos Bay before driving further north along 101...


and made another stop in Florence, a lovely community whose old downtown area lies along what I took to be an inlet from the ocean, and where we walked down a colorful main street and, briefly, out along the dock. Our customary search for a New York Times—wouldn’t want to miss the Sunday edition!—brought us to a small bookshop, where the friendly owner suggested we try instead at the Safeway up on the highway and, on learning that we were headed north, offered her opinion that the stretch of 101 between Florence and Yachats was one of the most beautiful anywhere in the world.

She was right on both counts. We picked up a Sunday NYT at the Safeway, and headed north to Yachats along a highway that dove through long tunnels of brilliant trees and out on to vistas of vast, sandy stretches of beach and solitary outcrops of rocky peaks. The surf, with its long lines of successively breaking waves, was quite simply spectacular. And all this in bright sunlight under a clear blue sky!

The Yachats Inn, where we had booked a room by telephone from Crescent City, proved a handy stopover—not luxurious, by any means, but with wi-fi access (!) for yesterday’s entry in "Travels with George," a gorgeous view out over the Pacific Ocean and a great, expansive lawn to accommodate our dog’s ball obsession. Once settled in, the three of us strolled along the coastal path to the small town, where we were excluded—because of George—from the restaurant at the River House, but allowed to sit at a picnic table outside, and were served a really very good supper: creamy tomato soup, a green salad, fish and chips—all of which, as has become our custom, we shared throughout. We find that the portions are perfectly adequate, when shared, and we leave without that bloated feeling. At the end of our meal, George found a comfortable spot to demonstrate his exhaustion after a day’s exertion...


and the waiter offered us a tip that proved more valuable, surely, than the one we left for him. We had been intending to drive up the coast to Newport and take route 20 over to Corvalis, but changed our minds at his suggestion and were rewarded with the magnificent drive that I'' decribe tomorrow.

In the meantime, though, a walk back to our hotel at sunset...

... and an hour or so with the Olympics on TV. I watch those young girls in the gymnastics contest and I am astounded by their agility, by the capacity of the human body. And then, throughout the night, my old joints ached…! (For the record, we completed the one thousandth mile of our road trip today. That might help explain a certain soreness in the joints.)