Days 102-104 – 10/16-10/18 – Portland to Cape Meares, OR – 84 miles

What’s the point of an epilogue, anyway?

I’ve been listening to some mysteries while on the road. It’s not a genre I had consumed much in previous years, but it’s a better fit for audiobooks than more classically literary stuff. I’ve noticed how important epilogues are to these kinds of stories. The final chapters often accelerate to the finish, with the endgame unfolding at high speed as the brilliant detective hustles to avert disaster, thwart the villain, and save the day. The epilogue, then, offers the value of distance and perspective, as characters look back on the events, pull back the curtain, and explain how the whodunit was done, while also updating the reader on the consequences that have unfolded in the aftermath. The pace and intensity of the conclusion offers no room for reflection; the epilogue is required for that.

From a walking perspective, I first encountered the idea of an epilogue on the Camino de Santiago, where Santiago de Compostela is the conclusion (though some secular, contemporary pilgrims would disagree), but many pilgrims carry on to Finisterre and Muxia, two coastal towns with their own traditions as endpoints. Walking with students, especially, I’ve found those three days invaluable for beginning to grapple with the “what did it all mean” kinds of questions, while also bringing our group experience to a sense of closure. By contrast, when we’ve walked different routes, like the Via Francigena to Rome, the ending often feels abrupt, leaving little time for the mind to catch up with the body. One day, you’re a pilgrim; the next, you’re in a line of three hundred people waiting to see the Colosseum.

The structure of my US walk was uncannily similar to the Camino, with three days standing between the ocean and me, pushing on from one legitimate ending (my home) to another. And as is the case on the Camino, the first day’s walk, setting out from Portland in this case, filled my body with confusion. I’ve found no other day on pilgrimage to feel as befuddling to the body, trying to reconcile being done and yet still walking, experiencing closure as a process instead of a singular event. This was compounded in my US walk by some logistical factors. My goal was to walk westward to Hillsboro, a small city separated from my home by suburban sprawl, and then veer southward through wetlands and farms towards Gaston. This was basically as far as I could go before running out of public transportation connections to bring me home for the night, and while buses operate between Gaston and Hillsboro, there aren’t a ton. So I woke up early, pushed hard through the dark morning, grabbed a coffee in Hillsboro, and then sprinted onto Gaston. It wasn’t the best day of walking ever, but I enjoyed a short diversion through Jackson Bottom, and it got the job done.

The next morning my friend Fritz arrived early to drive me back to Gaston. Fritz first joined me for the first couple days from the Atlantic, and then he walked with me for stretches in West Virginia, Ohio, and Iowa as well. His presence prompted me to change my route to the coast, as we needed something with enough road access so that he could walk with me for stretches, but then pop ahead by car. Ultimately, I think this was to the benefit of the walk, not just because of Fritz’s company, but also because it diverted me to follow the “Trask Trail.”

As of now, there is no dedicated walking path that a person can follow from the outskirts of Greater Portland to the coast. The big hope is that the Salmonberry Trail will become that link, and a few people illicitly follow it now, but there are a lot of property and safety issues that need to be resolved. The Portland Bureau of Transportation advised bikers to follow these three options, but none were ideal in my view, as they’re paved the whole way, and have varying levels of car traffic. Instead, I opted for the Trask River Road, which is mostly used for logging these days, but offers a mostly unpaved link to Tillamook, which is only a handful of miles from the Pacific.

While I didn’t appreciate it at the time, the Trask has the added virtue of being historically significant, with its construction dating to 1870, after which it served as one of the primary links between the Willamette Valley and the coast for the better part of four decades. Two stage coaches followed the road daily, and as was true for me, it took two days to reach Tillamook. I don’t think Fritz would go as far as travelers back then, who called it “the most awful ride in the world,” but he certainly had some more adventurous moments than I did, navigating this in a car.

On foot, though, it was an absolute delight. It took a while to actually reach the Trask from Gaston, winding through the hills on a series of roads through the dark early morning, but once I did I faced a strenuous ascent through the thick forest, before looping around the Barney Reservoir. From there, an equivalent descent followed, sometimes directly alongside the river, and at other points holding high above it, as the cascade plunged lower. And while, as promised, occasional lumber trucks and offroad vehicles thundered past, it was much more often than not quiet, marvelous walking. We reached the Trask River Campground, where I had originally expected we might spend the night, but Fritz had a car and a wonderful family from school offered a beach house, so I spent my last night on the trail in absolute comfort. No complaints.

Having pushed through the entirety of the unpaved portion of Trask River Road, the second day was pretty much all paved, first continuing alongside the Trask and then winding through lush, green fields lined with very contented cows. The town of Tillamook, home to the famous dairy, offered a good spot for a break, before making the final push to the Pacific. The route to Cape Meares follows Bayocean Road, and as the name implies, it runs directly along Tillamook Bay before delivering travelers to the ocean. With practically zero shoulder, with the bluff climbing to the road’s left and the bay dropping off abruptly to the right, it looks daunting for pedestrians at first glance, but traffic was light on this cloudy, weekday afternoon.

Having said that, there were still places where houses could squeeze in, and in one memorable stretch two neighbors were clearly conducting a pitched battle involving political signs. Up first came the Trump house, with flags waving, smaller Trump 2024 signs posted along the road, and finally a warning sign indicating “Haters Ahead.” The haters were, indeed, as virulently anti-Trump as they were pro-Harris. One poster featured Trump’s mugshot and a message reading “Old, Weird, & Creepy!” Another declared, “You’re in a cult.” A third called for Trump’s arrest. Again, these are neighbors, their houses squeezed side by side, pinched between highway and bay.

When I set out on this trip in 2019, I was hoping to better understand America more broadly, and also the Trump phenomenon and accompanying sociocultural divisions more specifically. On one hand, I’ve come to better understand and appreciate Trump’s ascendance in 2016, and I think that learning was productive; it offered insights into missteps that liberals, in particular, had made in the years leading to that election that could be addressed. Relationships could be repaired. I think the story I would have written in 2020-21, had the walk been completed without COVID, would have ended on a fairly optimistic note.

By contrast, I can’t shake a powerful pessimism at this moment. Perhaps it’s just the specter of the imminent election looming large. Maybe, with some distance and time to reflect on the journey as a whole, I’ll end up in a more sanguine space. Now, though, it’s difficult not to feel despair that somewhere in the ballpark of half of all Americans continue to support Trump, given everything we know about his venal, corrupt, self-serving, and–in many regards–genuinely anti-American orientation. And with so many of us willfully consuming misinformation, opting into a fantasyland that denies all evidence that might challenge our worldview, it’s difficult to see a road forward that doesn’t lead towards a cliff.

If we’re stuck with a bipartisan system, we need a functional and ethical Republican Party to survive. We don’t have to look back in time too far to see this, with John McCain and Mitt Romney standing out all the more for their decency in contrast to recent MAGA grifters. Liberal policy proposals need to be challenged by genuine fiscal conservatism. If diversity matters as much to liberals as claimed, that has to include appreciation for political ideological diversity. But that only works if those on the right are willing to engage in intellectually honest dialogue, with a goal of moving forward effective legislation, as opposed to obstructing in service to scoring political points.

All across this country, I engaged with likable people. Sure, some were probably suspicious of me and kept their distance. But people of all different backgrounds and beliefs–young and old, Trump supporters and aged hippies, hunters and immigrants, and countless other distinctions I couldn’t register in our brief interactions–offered me rides, provided ample space as they passed me on the road, checked in to make sure I was ok, gave me drinks or snacks or even meals. Many of us carry these weird, split identities, consumed with rage as we doomscroll, while being polite and sociable enough in person. There are lots of good people out there, even as they are being manipulated into being spiteful, defensive, and untrusting. If there’s hope, it rests in the possibility that they could find their way back.

Further down the road, I pass an informational sign telling the story of Bayocean, “the town that fell into the sea.” In 1906, Thomas Irving Potter, the 19-year-old son of a real estate developer, came to the Tillamook Bay and saw a golden opportunity. He discovered the four-mile long spit that established the border between ocean and bay, and immediately had visions of founding a town on that pristine spot. By 1911, the vision was already becoming reality, with many of the resort’s key buildings in place, on that sandy ground. Once the Porters managed to persuade the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build a jetty to calm the waters leading into the bay, they thought they had it made.

The first road was established to Bayocean in 1928, prompting a big celebration. And yet, the warning signs were already there. The first two cabins slid into the bay around that time. This was viewed as bad luck.

The problem, though, was that the jetty had unintended consequences that weren’t anticipated at all, and only discovered too late. The seaward currents had shifted, resulting in sand being consistently washed away from the spit. Bayocean was being eroded by the day. Its collapse was staggeringly quick; by the mid-1930s, the hotel annex and natatorium were ruined, and countless cabins had embarked on marine voyages. By the 1950s, Bayocean was gone, aside from a garage that managed to hold on until 1971. It’s a solemn note on which to end the walk, especially as fears of climate change dominate so much of our discourse. As an allegory, the story of Bayocean is almost too on the nose.

Today, though, there was nothing to be done about any of that. I had one last mile. I set out from the Atlantic at Cape Henlopen; I finished this in Cape Meares. Cape to cape. It wasn’t by design, but I appreciate the accidental symmetry.

There are plenty of popular, famous spots on the Oregon Coast. Cannon Beach. Seaside. Manzanita. Newport. Lots of options out there. By contrast, Cape Meares is tucked away, hidden, lightly visited. At the entrance to town, a big sign states that there is “No Outlet” and “No Services,” as though it were declaring, “We’ve got nothing for you, tourists.” The final approach into town doesn’t even show up on Google Street View.

For all that, it’s a beautiful little beach, with a rocky cliff marking its southern end, and a smattering of beach houses sprinkled in the hills behind. A couple strolled with a dog that snarled at Fritz and me. To the extent that we had a welcoming committee, that was it. And that was fine by me.

I padded through the sand and then splashed my feet into the ocean, no longer concerned about wet feet or sandy toes. These shoes had managed to get me through the last 700 miles, so these were their final steps; they could carry half the beach home, for all I cared at this point.

And with that, it was done. It was time, at last, to figure out what it meant.