Yachats, Oregon

After spending a week at home on the trip from Jacksonville to Whidbey Island, the final leg of the trip involved driving up the 5 for 1,300 miles. We stopped north of Mt Shasta the first night. Nothing spectacular. Day two I drove through Oregon and decided to stop in a small seaside town in the middle of nowhere called Yachats.

The town is only 0.9 sqare miles and has a population of about 700. Apparently it was once inhabited by Indian tribes for nearly 1500 years before the Army drove them away. Sad.

I had visited here about a thousand years ago when I was eight or so. Obviously my memory of everything was a little fuzzy and it wasn't quite how I remembered. I was still able to find the same motel I stayed at:

The glorious Silver Surf Motel...with vacancy! No one was there, it was kind of sad.

Here's the exact room I stayed at when I drove through here with family long time ago. Everything was how I remembered it.

A few hundred feet away was the beach and this cliff thing I don't remember at all.

View of the beach to the North

South

West

I tried to stay until sunset to see if it would be the same as how I remembered - an intensely purple sky mixed with orange and yellow reflecting off the puddles and sand at low tide...the best sunset I have ever seen. This time around it looked more benign as you can see above. Maybe sunsets are more intense when you're younger?

The little detour to visit this childhood memory for a few hours had me driving back to the interstate along hilly, windy roads in the dark for two hours driving a 28' foot truck. It was worth it though and nice to know the area is still relatively unchanged after nearly two decades.