Prehistoric Sights(First another update from one of my knowledgeable readers. Botanical Interlude 1.1 I guess. Bea points our that a lot of the yellow-flowered bushes you see along the coast (but not very often in the valley) are gorse, ulex europaeus, which is even worse-behaved than the Scotch Broom. Originally imported by a Scottish lord (what IS it about those Scots?) to use as hedgerows on his Oregon landholdings, gorse is oily, incredibly inflammable and its roots are tangled together underground, so when it burns, it burns for miles and miles. It is an allergen for lots of people and besides that it has awful spines that leap out and grab your clothing if you get too close. It once nearly burned Bandon to the ground and Bea and I were once wandering around near Florence and were almost caught in a gorse fire. They can be hard to out-drive, let alone out-run. At one time the state tried to kill it with spider mites (an idea borrowed from some researchers in New Zealand), but it didn’t really work. You can’t mow it because it just grows back thicker. It’s pretty much poison or controlled burning.)On Saturday, after another lingering look at the scenery around Bandon, we headed for Port Orford. Now we are deep in cranberry bog and myrtle wood country with some fields of ewes and lambs here and there. The lambs are a bit past adorable, about five-months old, just right for roasting. There are artists and artisans here, too, of course, as there are anywhere tourists drive by. Lots of myrtle wood bowls, jam, kites, glassblowers. One interesting sign beckons “Blow Your Own Fishing Float!” Well, you certainly don’t find them on the beach anymore, although this aficionado, Steven Miller, maintains that the Chinese are increasing their use of floats again, but with molded floats, not blown (you can tell by the seam). These floats were once used extensively by Pacific rim countries to make fishing nets buoyant, and the glass floats would frequently wash up on Oregon shores, after journeys of many miles and many months. A common use was on drift nets, which are now out-of-favor in most of the world because of the by-catch, i.e., scooping up fish and marine mammals you’re not fishing for -- think dolphins. In fact, in 1993 the United Nations declared a moratorium on drift-netting on the high seas. Individual nations can still use drift nets within their 200-mile limit (Exclusive Economic Zone). Oh, and of course, there is still illegal drift-netting. For those interested, a little background from Earth Trust. We stopped in Port Orford for breakfast and to look at their boat-hoisting operation. Port Orford, the town, is small, charming, and not very prosperous, but the kind of place where everyone knows everyone and they all take care of each other. It really is a town with the feel of yesteryear. Breakfast was excellent at the Port Orford Breadworks and featured Taylor’s sausages (I’ve written about Taylor’s before and will mention it again later). Just past the Breadworks is the local theater. We don’t know  anything about it, except that some of the best local muralists have been hard at work. The west wall is a riot of movie star caricatures.Port Orford is a small port, but was the earliest settlement on the Oregon Coast. This is because there is no rough bar to cross -- an open water port. Early port activity was focused on supplying gold miners; later lots of lumber, principally Port-Orford-cedar, went through the port. Now it’s mainly a fishing and recreational port and boats are launched by crane hoist.  (You can also launch small boats through the surf, and we actually saw someone do it the day we were there. Note the pickup at the surf's edge. Someone has to be willing to get very wet, though -- a wetsuit is best.)The port is a center for sea urchin and for crab, rock fish and salmon. Sea urchin is the most interesting, it’s harvested by diving and hand-raking. Only the roe is eaten, and that usually in some other country. When I was working for the ports’ association there was a packing plant in Gold Beach (just a bit down the coast) where plain old redneck Americans learned how to pack the roe in color combinations that appealed to the upscale Japanese market. I don’t know if it’s still there. I do remember that they made me eat some. And if you want to order some online, or just see what it looks like, it's available from Catalina Offshore Products. Just after Port Orford you come to the Prehistoric Gardens. I’ve driven past this place dozens of times and never stopped, but this time we did. We were glad, too. Even though it seems hokey from the outside it’s really pretty cool. It’s a somewhat strange combination of coastal temperate rain forest and life-sized replicas (so far as we know) of dinosaurs. What they’re portraying could never have happened for several reasons. All of this coast was under water until into the age of the mammals, so there could have been swimming dinosaurs here but not walking around ones. Also they have mixed some dinosaurs in time, and of course, in proximity. But still, it’s quite educational.
Back to cheerier topics, The Prehistoric Gardens are the brain child of an Oregon sculptor, Ernest V. Nelson, who began creating the creatures in 1953. They are about 20 dinosaurs represented, and Nelson carefully researched available information, examined dinosaur bones in large I can find no evidence that Nelson ever sculpted anything else. He apparently served in WWII, came home and spent his time making this place the way he wanted it. And it's great fun, and apparently loved locally, too. In two place there are plaques that have the following verses by Al Qualman, a Coos Bay oyster man, but I can't tell which one, a contemporary of Nelson's, or from a later generation.
Walking through these gardens also inspired Sheila to tell us a story about her recent trip to Arizona. She went to a lecture before a desert hike where the ranger was admonishing people to be careful of rattlesnakes. If you are just careful, he said, you will find that a rattlesnake rarely bites without warning. The most common signal the snake is about to bite is as follows, “Hold my beer, and watch this.”
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