Each winter I come to a point where I begin to crave some kind of assurance that the world won’t always be cold, dreary, and colorless. Those assurances, more often than not, take the form of visual vacations through photos of warmer, more colorful scenes.
One such vacation recently took me through several visits to the Oregon coast. I first went there in 20161 and dreamt of taking spectacular sunset photos — but that was not to be. Instead I encountered fog, lots of it, and initially had no idea what to do with it. By the end of that trip, I’d become a complete convert. We seldom encounter fog here in New Mexico and I’d realized that it was a very fine form of magic indeed.
I went back to Oregon the following year to take more fog photos but alas, that was not to be either. Instead I arrived during a period of clear, sunny days similar to New Mexican summer days.2
I’d visited every lighthouse on the Oregon coast3 the previous year, and the Coquille River Lighthouse had become a clear favorite by the end of that trip.4 I’ve yet to return to the Oregon coast without making a stop there.
After four trips to the Oregon coast, I’ve learned that I’m as likely as not to run into various combinations of semi-fog and semi-sun. I like to think that I’m able to take decent photos no matter the weather, but the Oregon coast, in particular, routinely reminds me that’s not always true.
I took that trip entirely because of other people’s photos of the Oregon and extreme northern California coasts. I had no idea what I was doing and, beyond making hotel reservations, had only the foggiest of plans (so to speak).
With a critical exception: it was dramatically cooler and more humid along the Oregon coast than it ever is in most of New Mexico during the summer.
Every lighthouse open to the public, that is.
The Cape Meares Lighthouse also came in near the top, as did the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, aka Terrible Tillie — though my fascination with the latter is more similar to a bad train wreck I can’t un-see.