Lighthouse Duty

We can check off another item on our bucket list. When we first started traveling and RVing, we visited a lighthouse on the Pacific and had a conversation with the State Park volunteers who were giving tours there. We thought that would be an interesting thing for us to do.

Last year, while spending time along the Oregon Coast, we visited state parks to see which ones would be fun for us. Our visit to Cape Meares Lighthouse seemed to be the perfect place. It’s a short lighthouse – only 37 feet tall so that means less stairs to tease our knees. And the history, the story, was one we could get into. So, we met with the Volunteer Supervisor, checked out the potential sites we could be living in, and walked along the beautiful beach. We applied and were accepted and scheduled to work August and September 2024.

We are here – now almost a month into this – and we are enjoying this beachy life. Our campsite is just on the other side of the dunes, so it is a short walk to the beach, and we are not dealing with the usual strong winds because of the dunes sheltering us. The site itself is right next to a busy bathroom/shower house and our neighbors are mostly tent campers in no hook up sites. We weren’t sure how this would work for us. But after experiencing a few campers walking through the back of our campsite to the restroom, we chose to not stress out over it. For those of you non-camping folks, it is considered bad campground etiquette to walk through someone else’s site. Some people get outraged over that. It doesn’t happen as much as we thought it would – so we adjusted our attitude and now we just ignore it. And it has brought us a few good conversations.

In spite of large groups camping near us, there is little to no noise at night. And, all the people walking back and forth on the road just gives us something to watch. We’ve met some great folks – a family from Maryland, two guys in a meticulously renovated VW Wagon, and lots more who make life in this campground pleasant.

The beach – it is huge – the flat sand means low tide goes way, way out. The only shells are sand dollars – mostly in small broken pieces, some with just their crown cracked and then the rare perfect ones that somehow Doug finds. Sometimes we see Dungenous crab shells, an occasional mussel shell, almost no rocks and a sprinkling of seaweed. There are small Moon Jellies and larger more colorful Vilella jellyfish. The best part is during most parts of the day, the sand is deserted. I’ve been out there in the early evenings, and I am ALONE! What a feeling. Like the whole world is just mine!

Our job is giving tours of the lighthouse and running the gift shop. We do overt 20 tours a day – 12 to 15 minutes long – and we take turns. The lighthouse is only open from 11 to 4 with a half hour break at 2 pm for our lunch. The tours can comfortably accommodate up to 8 people at a time. We often have to turn people away. So we have a color system to control the groups which seems to be working just fine. Whichever one of us is not giving tours handles sales and organizing these tours. It is very fast paced. The days whiz by.

It is a long day. We are working Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays and every other Wednesday. We met the other couple who alternate with us, and they were great – very helpful. To be at the lighthouse ready to open the door, we leave our campsite at about 9:30 to pick up our loaner car (the rangers call it Blueberry) and our bank for the day. We also often transport inventory for the gift shop.

It is a slow half hour drive up the coast about 10 miles on the winding road. We do have a convenient parking spot near the lighthouse but we have to unlock two set of bollards to get there.

We keep the lighthouse clean by dusting and sweeping and we restock the merch. We close promptly at 4 pm, count the bank, lock up and drive to the ranger station where we turn in our bank. So far, with a few tiny mishaps, our money has been perfect.

The visitors are thrilled to actually get into the lighthouse. Many lighthouses are in disrepair and are not safe for tours. They seem to enjoy the history and story we tell them while standing in the close quarters of the mechanical room. Our second floor is closed due to some damage. That means we walk up and down only 15 steps – a metal circular staircase.

We have a free washer and dryer for our use in another campground loop. Groceries are a half hour away in Tillamook, so we try to do that just once a week. This week we chose The Tillamook Creamery for lunch – we have already done the factory tour so it was just lunch for us – a perfect wedge salad for me and an excellent grilled cheese for Doug. It was insanely busy there so that may be our only visit this summer.

We are happy here – we both love our long beach walks, either together or separately. The weather starts out overcast in the mornings and often turns sunny. The winds have been relatively mild, and we are not complaining about the cool temperatures – 60s and 70s.

This bucket list item is happily checked off!