The Oregon Coast – Saturday Monsoon

Despite the rain, we stick with plans to spend Saturday driving the Oregon coast. I plot a triangular course: from Portland to Seaside, from Seaside to Tillamook, from Tillamook to Portland. After walking a half-mile in cold rain to our ZipCar parking lot, we dump our soaked coats in the backseat, tap our destinations into our trusty GPS, and off we go.

What we do not anticipate is the arrival of a monsoon.

Heading into the mountains, the rain is just rain — hard rain, cold rain, but just rain. But once we begin our ascent into the Oregon Coast Mountain Range, everything changes. Heaps of last week’s snow line the roadsides. The winds pick up, and evergreens as tall as ten-story buildings bend toward us at startling and unlikely angles. The rain thickens, curling like curtains and billowing like smoke. Every time the car rounds a curve, a hammering gust of air makes the frame shudder.

By the time we reach Seaside, the Pacific Ocean is a churning, white-capped mess. The water is the color of old Coke bottles; fierce wind rips foam off the surf and sends it coiling into the air. The rain falls sideways.

Feeling obliged to get out of the car and do something, we park in downtown seaside and stagger to a coffee house. We buy lattes. We sink into couches. We check email. We wait. Surely things will improve?

But, no — they deteriorate further. The rain no longer falls sideways — it *streaks* sideways, as though the entire town has become a high-speed train rocketing forward through a hurricane. We fight our way back to the car and head south toward Tillamook.

At first, I’m disappointed that a thick layer of evergreens and cabins lies between us and the view of the ocean. But then, when this gives way, we find ourselves on a narrow strip of asphalt with mountain on one side and a steep drop into the rocky, churning coastline on the other. With nothing to absorb the screaming wind and lashing rain, the car trembles and rocks from side to side.

We stop in Manzanita for lunch, more out of our hope for a break in the weather than out of hunger. At the Big Wave, we help ourselves to a platter of pan-fried oysters (greasy, disappointing) and the catch of the day — cod and chips — which isn’t bad. But once it’s clear the storm isn’t going anywhere, we pay the check and head off into its fury again.

By the time we reach Tillamook, I turn to Clyde and say, “This is exactly like driving through a hurricane.”

“It’s not as bad as a hurricane,” Clyde says, but about that time, a massive metal garbage can flies across the road, followed by a wooden “Commercial Property for Sale” sign as large as a bicycle. Both skitter in front of us at high speed, apparently as light as styrofoam.

Clyde looks at them. He looks at me. We keep driving.

In Tillamook, we stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory (and Gift Shop). All the parking spaces near the door are taken, so we park in the auxiliary a few dozen yards away. Outside the car, the wind rips at our clothes. Our jackets and jeans flap like flags on the masts of ships. We — and the people around us — make it inside only by leaning forward at crazy, impossible angles.

Inside, the self-guided tour is nice enough.

The cheese samples are tasty, but the ice cream is some of the best commercially-packed ice cream I’ve had. (The sea-salted caramel is particularly good.) But, all too soon, we exhaust our options, and it’s once again time to head out into the storm, which has only grown in strength and power.

It says something for us, I think, that despite all the outrageous weather, we have a pretty good day. When you’re traveling, you have to make the best of things — to appreciate whatever the Universe brings your way. Is the Oregon coast more beautiful on calm and sunny days? Of course — but there’s also beauty in Nature Gone Wild, and magic in sharing the experience in the car together.

Back in Portland, we’re a bit more road-weary than planned, so we ditch our tickets to the Flash Gordon musical and, instead, have a hot, spicy, leisurely dinner at Chiang Mai, a hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant with all the flavor of Pok Pok but none of the Food Network-inspired hubbub. (Tonight, even at 5:00 PM in a hard downpour, Pok Pok has a line trailing out the door and down the block. At Chiang Mai, even though the place is busy, we walk right in.)

Would you be disappointed, dear reader and armchair fellow traveler, to learn that, after dinner, instead of pushing ourselves back out into the night, we went back to The Nines and watched two episode of The Good Wife on an iPad? It may not be the most authentic evening in Portland ever, but I have to say I was happy to be warm and dry and nestled next to Clyde in a fluffy bed.

Part of happy traveling, I think, is knowing when enough’s enough, and choosing a quiet night at home with someone you love over Yet Another Adventure on a cold, rainy night.