Ingress Portals Approved and Beachwalk in Yachats, Oregon

Highway 101 at Cape Perpetua near Yachats, Oregon

I couldn’t be more excited than if you told me I just won an around-the-world luxury trip for two in a private jet. Ingress notified me yesterday that two of my portal submissions have been approved. The first portal is in Manele Bay on the island of Lanai in Hawaii. The second is on the island of Molokai, Hawaii. Each will display my screen name, which contains the word Realtors but not in a manner that N.A.R. could object to.

Ingress doesn’t accept just any ol’ portal submission and has rejected a ton from me. Historic and iconic structures in Sacramento have been outright rejected as a portal. Even my portal suggestion of the plaque at the Summit of Bald Mountain near Sonoma was pooh-poohed, much to my dismay. You can therefore imagine my giddiness when Ingress Operations approved a couple of my Hawaii portal submissions as I had been previously so dismayed over the lack of acceptance that I stopped making submissions.

Tide Pools along the Historic 804 Trail at Yachats, Oregon

Not that there are any portals to submit along the beachwalk in Yachats, Oregon. The place is pronounced, Yah-HOTS. As a waiter explained at the famous Drift Inn, a restaurant with wood booths and wood floors originally constructed from driftwood, where the ceilings are covered in fancy umbrellas, some upside down with a rose petal print, and dozens of hanging pendant lights featuring custom glass-blown lamp shades from Bob’s glass shop down the road in Seal Rock: Either you’re hots or you’re not.

Cormorants perched high on the rocks in Yachats, Oregon

My husband dragged me away from my computer, before I even had time to write my morning blog, but not before I answered the dozens of overnight emails I receive from clients with sudden inspirations to write after midnight. Time to do the beachwalk in Yachats. There is a path that runs sometimes along the water and other times on the unstable cliff areas along the beach. At one point, it took a sharp left, something I have been known to do in conversations without signaling, and headed out to the road.

Anemone in the tide pools of the Beachwalk in Yachats, Oregon

Those are the homes that must have political connections, I suppose. I imagine they also sell for a lot more than the $500K to $800K range. These homeowners probably don’t want the public trampling through their back yard, and I can’t say I blame them, really. If I lived there, I probably would object to traffic interfering with my vista of the sea unless it was the feathered type.

Large mussel lying along the shore at low tide beachwalk in Yachats, Oregon

We poked around in the tide pools but I didn’t find any baby squid like I used to spot when I lived on the oceanfront in Ventura. Once I had scooped a squid into a glass bottle filled with sea water and brought it inside, thinking I would keep it as a pet. That night I had a horrible nightmare of a giant mother squid attaching all of her tentacles to my picture window, searching for her baby. Would you like to wake up to discover nothing but tentacles covering your window? Huh? I don’t think so. At first, you would think, hey, it’s dark in here, and what is that on my window? And then it would slowly dawn on you . . . hello, Stephen King novel.

Beach and town enveloped in fog below Yachats State Park

It was a lot of work to climb over some of the rocks and make our way to Ocean Beach in downtown Yachats. My footing did not always feel secure, and when you get to be my age, breaking a hip is more of a concern than smashing your camera into the rocks. All of this activity before breakfast, too.

Yet, it was a glorious beachwalk in Yachats. The waves were furious and angry, like ancient Greek warriors banded together, charging into war. Huge walls of water rose up along the shore and then exploded over the rocks — and this was at low tide. I found anemones in the tide pools. Families of cormorants perched on the highest rocks and flapped their wings in the fog. Solitude. Only the sounds of crashing waves and crying seagulls.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub