So plans have changed since last night... The radio was just full of reports on the nasty weather that was coming into Oregon and Northern California for the next couple of days. Endless rain, 3"-6" total, high winds, cold and even snow in parts of the coast range and Sierras. And it did indeed start to rain last night around 9:00 p.m. and pretty much hasn't stopped since then.
    It was coming down pretty good this morning when I got up, and even though I had prepared to leave and head south, it just didn't sound like much fun to me. So I didn't! Instead I trotted down to the park kiosk and signed up for another three nights here, in the hopes that the weather would abate somewhat before Sunday morning.
   All in all it seems to have been a good decision as it hasn't really stopped raining since then. There have been a few moments when it has been raining less hard, but it is quite damp outside and looks like it will continue to be that way for at least one more, and likely two more, days. So I just hung out for awhile this morning drinking lots of hot tea and reading and such. But there was a short lull in the heavy rain and I ran out and got in the truck and headed out for adventure anyway.
   My destination today was the Dean River State Park just to the east of the town of Reedsport. It's one and only claim to fame is that it has a resident elk herd in the area that likes to hang out in the meadows right there along the river and the highway. And indeed they were there this morning. At least 100-120 of them were out feeding and bedded down out in a meadow a hundred, to several hundred, yards away from the viewing platform. Most of them were cows and this years calves, but there were a good twenty or so bulls that were mostly bedded down nearby too.
    These are all Roosevelt elk out here, one of six subspecies, and supposedly the largest, of all of them. While there were a couple of decent 6x6 bulls out there in plain sight, none of them even came close to approaching the shear size, weight and antler size of some I have seen back in Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming. Still; it was fun to sit in the truck and watch them all with the binoculars as the rain came down in a steady drizzle. I stayed for about an hour and watched as some got up and foraged and others laid down to chew their cuds. I did take a few pictures, but I'm not sure how they will turn out. It was pretty misty and they were out there quite a ways.
   Otherwise it has been pretty slow around here. I returned to Coos Bay and had some lunch and then just headed over to the library to hang out. It's nice and warm and dry and they have free internet, so it hasn't been to big of a deal. I will need to find another book or two however if this keeps up for any time.

Cape Blanco Lighthouse near Port Orford, Oregon  

Nov 8, 2014

Standing on a point more than 200 feet above the ocean Cape Blanco gets its name from the white cliffs it sits on. The circular, brick tower rises to a height of fifty feet, and an oil room is attached to its base. A two-story, brick duplex, with seven rooms on each side, was built 125 feet south of the tower. The principal keeper was assigned one side, while the two assistants shared the other. These buildings have long since been torn down.   

The fixed white light from the tower's first-order, Fresnel lens was first lit on December 20, 1870. With a focal plane of 250 feet, the light could be see from up to twenty-three miles at sea.

Supplies for the lighthouse had to be landed on the beach south of the station until a 7,000-foot roadway was built in 1885 to link up with the county road leading to Port Orford, the nearest landing. In 1888, mineral-oil lamps replaced the lard-oil lamps used inside the lens, and in 1890 a detached brick oil house was built to store the more volatile fuel. 

 

Around 1912, a hood was placed around the lamp, and a clockwork mechanism was used to raise and lower the hood to produce the following flashing signature: two-second eclipse, light for three seconds, two-second eclipse, light for thirteen seconds. In 1936, the original lens was replaced by a second-order revolving lens with eight bull's-eyes. The new lens, rotated by an electric motor powered by a generator, produced a white flash every twenty seconds. The motor and lens are still operating in the tower today. 

The station was automated and de-staffed in 1980. Twelve years later, two local teenagers broke into the lighthouse and, using a sledgehammer, smashed one of the lens' bull's-eyes and six smaller prisms. The boys were eventually apprehended and convicted. After a nation-wide search, Larry Hardin, of Hardin Optical Company in nearby Bandon, was selected to repair the lens. By the spring of 1994, the lens had been restored using Corning Pyrex, at a cost of $80,000. 

 

 

The view from the top of the cliff near the lighthouse.

One last view......   Note: All of the relevant information about this and other lighthouses has been taken from the web site:  Lighthousefriends. com  It is a good website if you are at all interested in visiting a lighthouse anywhere in the U.S. or Canada.

brk*