Thursday, June 28, 2012

Brookings, Oregon - a very nice town

 We traveled from Eureka, CA to Brookings, OR, which is just north of the California state line. Brookings is a nice town located on the Chetco River and offers a number of different RV parks.  We stayed at the Parkside RV park which is located near the marina.

 Behind our rig was this beautiful hydrangea bush that Orinda really liked. It seems that everything grows great in this temperate climate with plenty of rainfall.

 There is a large marina and boat basin located right across the street from the RV park and a very short way from the Pacific Ocean. We wandered over to the boardwalk to see what was around and see the boats.

  Lo and behold -- a seafood grill right here! And it offers chowder, Rick's favorite.
Rick wondered if the chowder was any good and turning the corner, he saw this sign -- and decided that lunch was in the offing. Turns out that the sign was right -- the chowder was great!

After lunch, we continued to explore the marina, which was filled with boats. We also learned about a calamity that occurred a bit over a year ago. 

 On March 11, 2011 the Japan earthquake caused a tsunami wave that struck the Port of Brookings. We had no idea that an earthquake on one side of the Pacific could cause terrible damage thousands of miles away.

Here is a shot from local press coverage showing a small portion of the damage -- compare this with the shot I took above (for photo reference, see http://www.newslincolncounty.com/?p=18631

 It turns out that the tsunami wave was strong enough to turn back the Chetco River flow (even when swollen with rain) and divert it and the tsunami into the boat basin area. This huge surge of water caused terrific damage to the docks and boats in the area. While this caused millions of dollars of damage, the damage has been fully repaired and the port is once more beautiful.


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