And not just the cost of houses facing the ocean; the purchase price for those little "overnight stay in Manzanita" places is through the roof if they're in the town center, not far from the beach.
Most of those who own homes here don't live in them. Many houses in Manzanita are rented out as short-term rentals rather than permanent residences, and the influx of tourists in the summer is colossal. The permanent residents are either retirees or people who work remotely online. Manzanita is almost entirely dependent on tourism.
Most jobs are in hotels, restaurants, cafes, shops, as well as companies involved in real estate sales, management, and rentals.
If you decide to come, the realtors here will help you choose a house and finalize the purchase... Well, if you have a million to spare... (Some sarcasm, uncharacteristic of my stories, has woken up in me.)
Housing is expensive here, and working in retail or a bank, or cleaning houses and yards, doesn't earn you much, so many of the people employed in the tourism sector are forced to live in other, less expensive towns in Tillamook County and commute here for work.
The town, as I've already written, is tiny: just a few streets, two or three central ones with the city hall, little shops, restaurants, etc., from which smaller streets with residential houses branch off, and that's it.
That is, the branching streets aren't anything special. They're just regular.
I can't even imagine where 200,000 tourists (that's how many, on average, come here from early June to late August!) can fit, and what the houses, hotels, cafes, and restaurants must be like when they're all full.
We actually came on a Friday, not the weekend; my daughter took a day off work to spend time with me.
The tourist season is over, it's early September, and it's already getting cold...
It's an overcast day, and the sea breeze is blowing from the ocean. But it's on a day like this that the special charm of this town is felt. (Well, and there are very few people on the street we're walking on! Which is absolutely wonderful... sometimes...)
Coming here for a day is enchanting.
And the first enchantment is doing nothing.
Well, if you don't consider strolling down the street "doing something."
(And is sitting on one of the balconies with a glass of wine, like those tourists, "doing something"?)
Of course, you can go into a shop—that's your second "doing nothing"—and even choose and buy something there...
Oh, I went in!
Into a small boutique, about twenty square meters, where you could buy almost everything, from postcards, dishes, scarves, and clothes to decorative items for the home...
Is it beautiful? — Sometimes, very.
Did I like anything? — Yes, but only a few things.
Did I buy anything? — No way!
Prices started at thirty dollars. Yes, yes, I hear you, these days that's not a huge amount for Oregon, but if I told you that a postcard that caught my eye (the postcard had a reproduction of Hokusai's "The Great Wave," no, I'm not showing off my knowledge of Japanese artists, Katsushika Hokusai is the only one I know and remember from Japan, I used to tell children about him myself in school if the topic was Japan, sorry, I distracted you), that postcard cost thirty-two dollars!
The town and its shops are clearly geared toward wealthy retirees.
(I'm a retiree too! I can afford to live comfortably, but I haven't lost my mind yet. Things should have a reasonable price. Reasonable once. And reasonable twice. I think I'm trying to be funny...) All the shops are small. Here's a toy store.
And this one sells sweets.
And here you can rent everything for surfing. Although who would want to ride waves in such cold weather is a mystery to me.
(Even in warm weather! In Manzanita, in the hottest August, the average water temperature doesn't exceed 17 degrees Celsius, and on average, it's 13. Do you want to take a dip?)
And this is the local grocery store.
And flowers are being sold, clearly cut from someone's yard, standing in jars. I still can't get used to paying by QR code, on your phone, taking the bouquet you like, putting the jar down on a tray, and leaving with the bouquet, without even going into the store...
If you've been in one shop, you've been in practically all of them. Although, there was a bookstore nearby, and to my surprise, it was full of people! Well... there's not much else to do here in Manzanita, so reading books is a good option!
Even though it's small, Manzanita has everything!
And this is the local club.
This building, which looks like someone's well-kept home with flowers at the entrance, is actually the local art gallery.
(It looked like rudbeckia to me. I just looked it up online for confirmation and found photos of "Black-eyed Susan," Rudbeckia fulgida 'Goldsturm,' if any gardeners are interested.)
You'll never guess what's in this building with sunflowers under the windows.
It's the dive bar. I deliberately used that word. Have you ever thought about how a certain word brings up a whole bunch of associations for you?
Of course, this isn't a "dive bar" as it exists in my mind with all the associated memories. It's a pub. It sounds good! And drinks with alcohol are consumed in both "dive bars" and "pubs." (As always, the question is how much, who, how, where, and with whom...)
There are many small cafes and restaurants in Manzanita. We went to a hot dog stand for a quick bite.
My daughter's husband started a conversation with the owner (who was the only one working), saying that about ten years ago, he and his wife were here and ate the same hot dogs, they were delicious, which is why we came back. To that, the owner replied that back then, his father, who had worked there his whole life, was most likely the one who cooked the hot dogs, and since then, the business had passed to him...
The hot dogs were real, juicy, and delicious (the dogs got just a little bit, just to taste).
Oh, I forgot to mention that you can come here with dogs. They're allowed everywhere: you can have a glass of wine with them, stay in a hotel, rent a house, and eat a hot dog, sharing it with your four-legged friend. (The hot dog stand not only has a water bowl, but the owner also offers free treats for dogs.)
On an overcast day, sitting under bright umbrellas, eating a thick, flavorful, juicy hot dog, seasoned with ketchup and mustard, and washing it down with a cold beer... (Don't reproach me, don't reproach me, I never drank beer in my "teacher" life, but now I'm retired! I have to try everything!) It was a pleasure...
Manzanita...
For all two hundred thousand summer tourists, there's a tourist information center here. (I wonder what you can learn there? And is the center open in the winter? It's a shame I didn't go in and check...)
There aren't many hotels in town, and they are quite small, like these two on the coast.
But, like every, even the smallest, resort town, it has its own "Ocean Street," and on that street, every second house can be rented.
The main "doing nothing," the main attraction of Manzanita, is the seven-mile-long sandy beach.
It's a continuous strip of sand that stretches from the foot of Neahkahnie Mountain in the north and merges with the sandy spit of Nehalem Bay State Park in the south.
The view of the seven-mile beach from Neahkahnie Mountain is one of the most photographed places on the Oregon coast.
We didn't plan to climb the mountain, so we didn't get to see the beach and photograph it from above. If we're lucky, maybe next time, on our next visit.
Every self-respecting town located on the ocean shore, in addition to Ocean Street, has traditional legends about shipwrecks. Manzanita has its own legends.
The first legend seems to be just a legend. I'll tell it briefly.
The Spanish shipping route between Manila in the Philippines and Acapulco in Mexico was active for two hundred and fifty years (from 1565 to 1815). Ships carried valuable Asian goods to America: silk, porcelain, spices...
Among the ships was the galleon "Santo Cristo de Burgos" (The name alone is something! Santo Cristo de Burgos! It brings back memories of "Monte Cristo"!) The galleon is the main character in the local legend of buried treasure on Neahkahnie Mountain. Although this legend has many versions, the most common one is this: the crew from the galleon that was wrecked on the rocks buried a chest of treasure on the mountain, and then, so no one would know the location and find it, they killed a slave and buried the body at the top of the mountain. The treasure is still being sought today. (I'm not kidding.)
And the galleon "Santo Cristo de Burgos," by the way, disappeared in 1693 after sailing from Manila. In 1693!
The only question is how the galleon ended up so far north of its original destination. It seemed like just a legend; the ship couldn't have been so far from the usual shipping routes of the time. You might not believe in the buried treasure, but in 2022, parts of the ship's hull were discovered in sea caves near Manzanita and brought to the surface. Historians suggest that the ship got caught in a storm, was disabled, and was carried north, eventually sinking off the coast of Oregon, as its cargo—beeswax and Chinese porcelain—was found scattered along the shore.
And the second vessel sank here practically in our time.
The British ship "Glenesslin," which was wrecked on the rocks at the foot of Neahkahnie Mountain in 1913, was not carrying any cargo. It was a fully rigged sailing vessel that had made a long journey from Santos (Brazil) to Portland, Oregon, specifically to pick up a cargo of wheat. To ensure stability during the journey, the ship's holds were filled with sand ballast. The fact that the ship was empty is one of the most intriguing details of the shipwreck, which still remains a mystery. The wreck occurred on a clear, calm day, and the ship, with its sails full, for some reason headed straight for the rocks.
This led to speculation at the time that the wreck was deliberate, perhaps a case of insurance fraud, as sailing ships were becoming obsolete with the advent of steamships.
It was impossible to prove that the ship was intentionally steered onto the rocks, and the owners received an insurance payout for its total loss. It's said that the remains of the "Glenesslin" could be seen from the beach for a long time afterward.
Now on the beach, there are only tree trunks washed up by the ocean, very picturesque...
Jellyfish, which were quite hard, rigid to the touch (not with your hands, not with your hands!)...
... someone's half-eaten crab claws...
Maybe, if you walk around for a while and you're lucky, you might even find a piece of Chinese porcelain?!
The Manzanita area is known for its unique microclimate.
Locals call it "the donut," because the weather is often clear and sunny here, even when it's foggy or raining in the surrounding areas, although logically, Manzanita would be the donut hole then!
And the sun shines through a break in the clouds!
The town was named after the local manzanita shrubs, which in Spanish means "little apple." This name was given to the plant because of its fruits: they are small, round, and resemble tiny apples in shape. A little apple, a tiny town, where it's wonderful to do nothing, where time flows in a special way: slow, viscous, enveloping you with its endlessness... Where you can sit and talk, wander along the sandy edge of the beach, searching for shells washed up by the waves...
I came across a sign in the window of one of the shops that is absolutely untranslatable into Russian because of its simplicity and brevity: "Relax, you are on the beach time!" (The original story was written in Russian.) An automatic translator gives: "Relax, you're at the beach!" Which feels flat, superficial, though correct and concise. That's what an automatic translator is for. And, as often happens with translations, it is not accurate, as you can see.
How to translate this more accurately... There's a coarser option: "Don't sweat it, you're at the beach!" There's a longer option: "Forget your problems, you're at a beach resort!" Both translations are even worse than the automatic one.
You can't fit the thought into one short, memorable phrase; you'll have to explain it at length. If you ever come to Manzanita, here's my advice to you: "Don't think about anything in Manzanita, where the passage of time is measured by the endlessness of a walk on the beach..."
Relax, you are on the beach time!
P.S.
I found stories about Astoria that were written in September 2018, if anyone is interested. Astoria is twenty-six miles from Manzanita.
I was so young then!
For those who are interested in what the shrub looks like:
https://www.istockphoto.com/photos/manzanita
Manzanita shrubs, belonging to the genus Arctostaphylos, are primarily native to western North America, and their fruits, which are often red or green, play an important role in the ecosystem and were used by native peoples to make cider, jam, and medicine.
For myself, a memory of Manzanita, and for all my friends, a memory of me.
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