The Town of Gold Beach

The town of Gold Beach is squashed between the Siskiyou National Forest on its East and the Pacific ocean on its West. To the North it is bordered by the Rogue River. The above picture is of the harbor on the Rogue near its entrance into the ocean. If you take HWY 101 South along the coast you will cross the bridge and find what is probably considered "downtown" right along that road. Most of the businesses are hotels as well as a few local restaurants and a subway and DQ. Tomorrow we are going out to dinner with the youngest FS employees in Gold Beach, Jessie from wildlife and Megan from engineering, to a place called Grant's. Apparently it used to be a pancake and breakfast joint until it closed recently and reopened as a pizza parlor. There is a nice bookstore/coffee shop which also has an art gallery attached. While I was in line I heard someone saying, "It's too bad this place is closing." I just hope it isn't until after I leave. There is a little cafe/organic food store (which seems like it was converted from a house quite recently) next door which I've been meaning to check out again soon.

Then the sun went down...

It certainly was beautiful. I haven't been able to see it because of all of the clouds, but on Tuesday night the sky was clear... it has not been since. Sorry about the shaky camera job, I hope no one gets motion sickness (mom!).

The Beach

Hello from Gold Beach!

I've been taking many walks on the beach as the weather has been fairly nice. It rained the first week we were here. I want to say that I didn't see the sun once, but that must be an exaggeration. It was great this weekend and I went on a walk from one end of the beach to the other. The ocean is very cold. I had to take off my shoes so I could walk across a tidal stream and it was painfully cold. Lisa, the other intern was crazy and decided she couldn't wait for the water to get warmer. She put on her shorts and ran out to splash in the waves. There is a picture of her below. I'm not sure if people really go swimming near Gold Beach in the summer. The waves seem so wild that I would be afraid to let any kids play in them. I know there are a lot of people who surf in the area, including my supervisor, Clint. Lisa is very excited and wants to learn, although she has yet to find a wetsuit online. Watching the waves I just can't think that this is a good place for a beginner. I would rather try in the warm, welcoming waves of some place like Hawaii or Southern California. Here the waves are cold and dark and want to suck you under. Not to mention that Clint mentioned sharks which immediately freaked me out. Lisa isn't scared of the sharks, but is afraid of ticks. I can't figure out which is sillier, being afraid of something that you are likely to come in contact with a lot in this line of work or being afraid of something that could rip you to shreds but which you will almost never encounter.



Lisa versus the waves



There are two of these huts on the beach near town and I'm not sure if bums make them or if other people set them up for fun. I haven't seen anyone who looks homeless around town though.





Until next time!

My House... in the middle of my street.

This is the view out our living room window. The first green building on the right is the Resource Building where our office is. In fact, the window that you can see is the window that Clint's desk looks out of. All of the buildings, including the one that I live in are this color and have little green tree near the roof. At the stop sign is HWY 101, or Ellensburg Ave. and on the other side of the street is the Beach Comber. If you look above that you can see the ocean... although the coloring in the picture is not so great.

The next pictures are just general ones of the house. I don't think that they need too much explanation. The house is really nice and the living room is comfy and has a fire place. A few days around dusk we have seen deer out our front window. There is a mama and a baby and they are pretty cute. On the topic of wildlife, I saw my first Stellar's Jays today! They are probably not too exciting to the people who live here but I'd never seen one before. They are just something new and exciting. I also asked Clint today about clamming and he said that he went out with a shovel and tried to dig them out at low tide but had little luck. So I have decided the best idea would be to make a clam gun which I'm assured works well and sucks the clams out of their sandy hiding places. Clint also told me that the night before you cook the clams you should feed them corn meal so that they spit out all of the sand. I was a little confused and disgusted by this but thought I should suck it up and try something of the local culture. Apparently a lot of people go out clamming at low tide, or so says Clint.