Lily Pad Travels: Cape Blanco Lighthouse, Pioneer Cemetery, Hughes House, Battle Rock, Gold Beach, Oregon

May 30th, 2016

Today was primarily a lighthouse day. We visited Cape Blanco Lighthouse.

It is located on the most westerly point of the contiguous United States and it certainly felt like it. The wind was blowing hard and they told us this was calm for them!!!

As you know we are interested in lighthouses. If there is one in the area where we are, we will try and see it. Oregon holds a bit more interest for us, as they use volunteers for their lighthouses and you get a RV site in exchange for your services. We are very interested in doing this, but as with most things there is a slight catch. At some of the locations there is no cell phone, internet or satellite reception. We can live without these things for a few days but would not want to do it for a month. We are using this trip to work out which lighthouses would work for us to volunteer maybe in the future.

We went into the gift shop where they had some historical artifacts. This visitor log from when the lighthouse opened intrigued me. It's over 100 years old and still legible.

Inside the lighthouse, we spoke in length to Judi, who was giving the tour today. She is a local, and very knowledgeable. We watched her telling visitors about the lighthouse and she was amazing. There was a younger boy who came in with his parents or should I say charged in and ran to go past her. He was about 6 years old and she stopped him abruptly. She then calmly proceeded to explain all about the lighthouse and history and why he had to wait to go up the tower. While he was waiting she would tell stories that were obviously geared to a younger child but very interesting to the parents as well. She told him what he would be doing while his father was lighthouse keeper back in the day. His demeanor changed immediately from wanting to go up as quickly as possible, to wanting to hear more about the history. I marveled at her knowledge and the way she could adapt to all ages. Oh, to be like Judi!!

Anyway, she felt that we would be good as volunteers, even after I explained that I wasn't sure I could learn all the facts. She actually had me picked out to be a volunteer at the Hughes House which is just down the road. I think this was because of its Irish ancestry and the fact I come from England which is close to Ireland probably played a part. She told us that we could get a cell signal here which was true as I had already checked it.

Eventually, we went up into the tower where a gentleman, I think his name was Bob, was dressed in a lighthouse keeper's uniform. He gave us the history of the light and lens. We immediately noticed how warm it was up there as it was enclosed by all glass and, of course, there was no wind. He told us that he opens a door that is there, when it gets warmer.

View from outside the lighthouse

Cape Blanco, see Bob and visitors at the top

After the tour we made our way to the campground to have a look at the sites and see what we thought. The lighthouse volunteers had their own sites which were in a very nice location. Yep, we could definitely do this, hopefully some time in the future.

We then went to the Cape Blanco Pioneer Cemetery.

There was a short trail cut through the grass toward the small cemetery which had about 5 gravestones all dating back to late 1800's or early 1900's.

Smelling the flowers

This bird sang to us on the way out!!!

We continued on to Hughes House.

Who wouldn't want a view like this!!!

A guide took us around the rooms, explaining the history. I love the way that Bryan captured certain areas of the rooms to truly reflect the era. The rooms and many of the pieces reminded us of our childhoods. It was like stepping back in time and fun to recollect those memories.

How many of you remember these?? My grandparents had a slightly different version. It was a lower more rectangle version. Heaven help us if we tried to touch it as the needles were very delicate and if it was playing you could cause a scratch on the record and it would be ruined. Bryan & I also had our own collections of LP's. Unfortunately, his disappeared before he met me and mine have long gone now.

This fireplace brought back memories of earlier homes. I remember holding a newspaper up to block the air and draw the fire to help get it started. It had to be just right so the paper didn't catch fire, ha!! ha!!

There were old invoices showing items that had been bought.

How many of you had these? A pass through from the kitchen.

The quilt reminded me of my Nanny Plum, mum's mum. She used to make these and I had one but eventually it started to fray and I let it go when we moved into the motorhome. I really wished now I had kept it but I don't think it could have been saved.

An early washing machine. Mum had a wringer on top of a metal rectangular tub as her first machine. She used to do wash on a Monday and we would have leftover meat from Sunday's roast and chips(fries) for dinner.

After our tour we headed into Port Orford for lunch. Judi had recommended a seafood place to us so we tried it out. Griffs on the Dock was a small seafood restaurant located on the dock.

I think the fish is going to be fresh, don't you??

I had a delicious fresh crab and melted cheese sandwich and fries. There was so much crab, it was to die for!!!! Bryan had a Philly Steak sandwich which he said was a little dry.

Love this picture of the ocean taken from the dock.

We started the drive home. There were a couple of spots that we wanted to stop at.

The first was Battle Rock

We went into the Visitors Center which had this ornate door. The volunteer there obviously has a lot of comments on it, as when we talked about it as we entered, he told us in a chirpy voice, that it was for sale on Tuesdays, cash and carry!!! We realized that as today was Monday we were out of luck, ha!!ha!!