RV's and Scavengers

Last weekend we went on a camping trip to Cape Blanco State Park. We'd managed to leave Eugene pretty early, so we managed to snag a fairly nice camp site. Cape Blanco is a nice park, with hot water showers and a clean restroom, which explains why so many RV's were there. I have to admit, though, that I don't understand why people hop into RV's so they can go camping and bring their Dish TV satellite dishes with them; for one thing, the dishes have a very high pitched tone used to audibly tune their receivers. Think the backing-up truck sound meets a metal detector, only this one goes to eleven. Now imagine one of your VCR-impared relatives using it. In the forest.

RV's aside, we had a nice time. It was interesting to watch all the scavengers come out whenever they thought the coast was clear. I've never seen a chipmunk hop onto a fire ring that still held a smouldering fire before, and I'm not sure who was the more aggressive: the stellar jays or the wrens.

Since it was 90+ F in Eugene, the coast was about 70F. Interestingly, when the inland is that warm, it draws all the moist sea air inland; so Cape Blanco was swathed in fog when we got there Friday afternoon. When we went to visit the lighthouse, the fog was so thick, we couldn't see it from the visitors' parking lot.

What sticks in my mind the most about the beach on the north side of the lighthouse were how many bones we found. I've found dead sea birds before, and the occasional dead sea lion, but this was the first time I've found rib, leg, and back bones washing up in the surf. Something that looked mamalian was wedged in the sand below the tideline on the sea-side of some rocks. I would have tried to dig it out, but various sea critters had made their home in it, so I left it alone.

After two and a half days camping at the coast, we came back to a still-hot-but-not-as-bad-as-the-forecase-led-us-to-believe Eugene. My hair (and clothes) smelled like a campfire and Monday morning the car smelled like a salmon smokehouse.