While in Gold Beach I lived in a small apartment. 

   

Sometimes we are surprised where we end up living.  Gold Beach is a lovely town and my home was an apartment across the beautiful Rogue River.  There were three buildings. My apartment was in the back behind the larger building.  There were only two apartments in my building with the laundry room behind my apartment that serviced the entire complex.  We were just a stone's throw from US Highway 101,but down the hill from it.  Since sound waves don't bend, most of the traffic noise went over our heads. Sometimes we would hear the truck Jake brakes as they slowed for the curve onto the bridge, but for the most part there was no traffic noise. 

    My first week here was a little difficult. It was raining most of the time and I could not figure out how to open the garbage bin.  Yes, simple things laid me low.  I tried to  open it several times, but finally gave up and had to ask for help.  Seems that the thing had an extra bar on it to prevent animals from going through the garbage found in there.  After you knew the trick, it was easy to open.  One day toward the end of my stay in Gold Beach, I looked out my window and found some deer wandering through.  It was a WOW day for me to be sure.

My home and silver Pontiac Grand Am. Downstairs apartment. I could park my car right up at my door. No steps up or down to get into my space. There was an apartment upstairs. I had the ground floor one.  Cozy and warm..
How my home looked when I arrived home after dark each night. I finally just left the outside light on all the time. I could not seem to remember to turn it on when I left for work...so resorted to leaving it on all the time. No one ever fussed about it. I got off work at 9 PM each night and toward the end of my assignment it would just be dusk. I tried to catch the ambiance of the place with this photo
There were several more deer, even a couple spotted fawns. I was not fast enough to get all of them photographed While not a common observed occurance at my apartment, I did see a couple deer walking through the place. 
This is the view out my front room window. One day I saw deer there on the pavement. Had to snap a couple photos of them.  

Packing to leave turned out to be an arduous task.  Seemed funny to me that I arrived with two large suitcases and two carry on bags and now could not get them to even start to fit.  This photo was taken prior to my getting all my stuff into the bags and boxes.  Yes, boxes.  When you think about the fact that the nearest Wal-Mart is 85 miles away, it's amazing the amount of 'things' I acquired during my 5 months in Gold Beach, Oregon. 
Leaving a place where you feel so comfortable is always hard, but this time it was especially hard.  On my way out of town I stopped by the local radio station to say goodbye to a friend.  Of course he was doing a LIVE show, so I only could take a photo through the window.  The station carries local news, music for different kinds of taste and this disk jockey is the father of my co-worker Rachel.  Had to give him and his radio station KGBR a plug.  (He would expect it.)
     Of course I could not put a plug for his radio station without including a plug for Seashore Rambles Vacation Rentals and Honeymoon Suites.  This is the view from Seashore Rambles. Sunset from Seashore Rambles. Nice place to stay when you visit the coast. Pet friendly.
But close to my home, where I turn off Highway 101 you will find the resort JOTS.   Fishing, swimming, boating and much more is available here.  I would walk down to the dock to fish. My fishing guide would have his clients meet him on the docks there.  I could walk to the heated indoor pool for swimming too. Went swimming there several times. 
Driving north on my last trip to North Bend/Coos Bay, I again went through the pass around Humbug Mountain.  It is probably the prettiest part of the drive if you don't count the views of the ocean.  I held the camera out the window as I cruised through at about 25 MPH to capture this photo.  This is a narrow winding road with a 35MPH speed limit on it.  The vines and vegetation seem to cover the rock face.  There is a small stream on the east side of the road.  I wanted to stop and take lots of photos here, but it was just not practical. No room to even walk along the roadside.  So I settled for a photo while driving. 
Flying out of North Bend airport a few hours later, captured this photo of the sand dunes and the bay there at North Bend.  If you really look at the terrain that North Bend is built on, you realize that the entire town is built on sand.  Interesting that the houses have not all shifted and fallen in disrepair.   Pretty town though.  Worth the time to visit and explore.
Summer photo of Mt.Hood found east of Portland, Oregon. Most of the snow has melted, just the glaciers left. A beautiful mountain. The most treasured of my childhood mountains. Then finally, leaving Oregon, in the haze (polite word for smog) I captured this photo of my favorite mountain,  Mt Hood.  The wing of my jet is visible in the upper right hand corner of the photo.  I was saying good bye to my favorite mountain and realized that in a couple weeks I'd be flying back.  I have taken my next assignment, also in Oregon.  This time it will be in the I 5 corridor.  A bit of a distance to the coast, but still something I can do on my weekends.  Makes me smile.   You just gotta love this job I have.