A Pleasant Day At Cape Foulweather
The Very Observational Newsletter, Vol. 6
Welcome to Very Observational with Adam Rockwell.
Thank you for being a subscriber 😄
📍 Observation Point (Literally) - Cape Foulweather
On Sunday, after a fun-filled weekend of cleaning our apartment, I looked outside. Something strange was in the sky. A ball of fire, just hovering there.
At 11 AM, on that Sunday, the sun 🌞 showed itself here on the central Oregon Coast.
Pure amazement.
Due to the sun poking its unfamiliar face out of the usual cloud cover,
decided: we were going on a nature drive. A nature drive! 😭I don’t HATE nature drives… but come late Sunday morning the weekend tourists are heading for the hills. That means coastal traffic! That’s right, we’ve been stuck in traffic jams on Highway 101 alongside some of the most beautiful coastlines in the world. Right behind a Ford F-350 spouting smoke from its chrome diesel pipe.
It ain’t all whales and sea otters here on the Oregon Coast.
I suggested that we drive up to Boiler Bay State Scenic Pulloff. It’s probably one of the best State Scenic Pulloffs I know.
Plus, bonus? It’s only fifteen miles north of us. Just north of Depoe Bay. (They pronounce it, “Depot,” like a train depot. Nobody knows why.)
The Boiler Bay State Scenic Pulloff sits atop a basalt outcropping that gives you some of the best views around. And the ocean! Once while we were sitting there intently staring at the water, a baby whale swam right up to the cliff and waved to us with her fin!
I am not even making that up.
Luckily for me, there was barely any traffic. The road was open. Our nature drive only took about twenty minutes and we made it to the State Scenic Pulloff. You can’t hope for anything better than that.
After staring at a seagull and some weird birds behind the pit toilets, we headed back south to Newport.
K.L. had a bright idea. “How about we go up Otter Crest Loop and check out Foulweather, you guys?” she asked.
The answer was: Yes.
Always say yes to Otter Crest Loop, even if you want to get home to watch Episode 2 of Andor, Season 2. The OC Loop (as we call it), has some of the best views around. Even some great whale watching.
Did I just say whale watching? Yes. Yes I did.
It is a little-known fact, by landlubbers such as yourself, that whales can indeed be WATCHED from land. You do NOT need to pay some charlatan $89 to go on their iffy whale watching boat to see whales. There are often gray whales right near shore.
We lucked out last weekend. For the first time in probably five months, we saw a few whales. They were out to sea about a mile, but you could see them breaching and spouting away, doing whale stuff.
Landbound Whale Watching Trick: The best way to spot whales from shore is to watch the whale watching boats. They use sonar to find the whales, or so I’ve been told. We have binoculars and I enjoy watching the people on the whale watching boats watching whales. They’re out there getting seasick while I’m on shore eating a sub, also… seeing the same whales!
After watching the people on the boats watching the whales, we had enough and headed up toward Foulweather.
Cape Foulweather
Cape Foulweather sits just to the North of Newport, Oregon.
Foulweather is spelled with just one word:
Foulweather.
Cape Foulweather was named by Captain Cook. At least that’s what local historians who wrote the ‘Historical Marker’ want you to think. For all we know, it was named by Captain Cook’s illiterate bilge boy.
Regardless of who actually named Cape Foulweather, we do know one thing: the namer was a loosie goosey speller and didn’t care about grammar Nazis.
He spelled Foulweather all one word. That takes moxie. Lots of moxie. That and semi-illiteracy.
One thing I would have liked about living in the 18th century, besides the lack of Facebook? No grammar Nazis. Heck, there weren’t even any real Nazis yet.
Great!
No Facebook. No Nazis. What’s not to like? (constant dysentery?)
Cape Foulweather is just off Otter Crest Loop, a one-way road that hugs the side of various 500-foot-high cliffs. That may not sound high, but trust me, it’s high, like most Oregonians Friday through Thursday.
For some unknown reason, #VanLife aficionados LOVE to park their vans up on Foulweather. I don’t know why; their vans are typically on tilt.
One thing about #vanlifers? It’s impossible to know which ones are “Cindy And Chad” from the popular #VanTok series: Van Diesel, and which are serial killers living in a 1988 Dodge conversion van that they bought from an out-of-business carpet retailer.
Just don’t knock on their windows and you’ll be fine.
I’m sure.
We found the perfect spot that didn’t have any #vanlife peeps or even #DragYourBodyIntoMyVan peeps and pulled over.
We sat in the sun.
It was wonderful. The sun gave us new life to live again while out at sea, a storm brewed and a whale spouted (probably).
About twenty minutes later, we realized it was raining.
Raining yellow pine pollen.
Spruce pollen?
Perhaps fir pollen.
I need to get this right, or the evergreen naming Nazis will come for me.
Regardless, it was a beautiful end to the weekend.
And none of us had an asthma attack.
The End
#CatStack Of The Week! 🐈⬛🐈⬛🐈⬛
🌊 Staring Into The Abyss - Writing On The Edge of the Pacific
🏠 In writing news: I’m kicking off a new biweekly series called Habitat for Insanity, starting in two weeks.
Habitat for Insanity chronicles the Rockwell family’s muddy, chaotic ride living and working on a nonprofit homebuild site here in rural Oregon.
From 2017 to 2022, we lived on-site in a cabin in the foothills of the Coastal Range while developing a five-home community from scratch. Permits, infrastructure, road construction—we managed it all while trying (and often failing) to stay sane.
This essay series covers the highs, the lows, and the completely sideways moments of those years.
It was a time.
Stay tuned. 📻
📖 In The Unexpected Exorcist book news!
All week I’ve been putting the final touches on this damnable exorcist book. In the next two weeks, I’ll be sending out an email to paid subscribers with a quick Google Form to collect your mailing address.
Once I’ve got that, I’ll get signed copies shipped out ASAP!
Here’s the cover of the ebook:
📚 Totally Recommended
First, I would like to share my wife-partner,
’s, recent post.Love it! 🥰
🪩 Nostalgia Nation 📼
One of my favorite writers on Substack is
, a.k.a. That 80s Dude. He’s about to release his book: Nostalgia Nation: The Definitive Chronicle of Growing Up Gen X.John asked me to be one of his ARC readers. At first I thought it involved welding but it turns out that ARC means Advanced Reader Copy.
I’m loving it so far. It reads like a fun, fast-moving catalog of everything I loved about the 80s. Yes, I’m that young. 😭
Nostalgia Nation drops on June 3. If you're into Gen X culture, mixtapes, mall food courts, and a world before TikTok, go pre-order it and thank me later.
Here’s a pic of Fluffles reading it. She gives it two paws up.
Click Here For: The Nostalgia Nation Book Info Page!
Outstanding post, Adam. I'm pumped about reading Habitat for Insanity! Also, this line had me cracking up... "He spelled Foulweather all one word. That takes moxie. Lots of moxie. That and semi-illiteracy." 🤣🤣
But you know what's totally made my day is that Count Fluffles has given my book 2 Paws!! 😻 Thanks for the kind words and support my friend... btw, we are not old, we are vintage 😉
But from your whale watching perch you don’t get to experience what the seasick people experienced to enhance their trip: whale breath. When they breach and blow, it’s…um…the blowhole version of halitosis.