Yachats Oregon Writer Rick Schultze

Yachats is a perfect place to spend a festive holiday season for many reasons. There are good restaurants, and bistros, lodging facilities, walking trails and a park, churches and access to several great beaches. As long as I can recall with the kickoff at Thanksgiving and running through New Years day there have been people visiting Yachats from all over the country and many countries outside of the USA. Personally my self and my girlfriend have had various family members from other places come for a holiday visit and its fun to see folks kick back and enjoy the village which is a very hospitable place. In fact many of our families have made acquaintances with village residents at the market, the coffee shops, and other gathering places so it’s often a bit of a mini-reunion with old acquaintances re-connecting.

However, this year is different and it’s mostly because of several factors with the leading one being the tenuous economy. Our long distance friends and relatives who generally fly to Portland or Eugene from California, Colorado, and Canada have been watching the air fares soar only to read recently that due to the lack of passengers caused some of the airlines to cut prices. That’s great if you can suddenly change your travel plans, arrange for time off and re-book car rentals and hotel rooms. But we’re just the kind of people that have to plan and budget well in advance so that hasn’t been much of a help. For other friends and relatives it’s been the cost of gasoline that put them off and now as gas prices drop they have already made other plans to stay more local. Sure we will have friends and relatives who live in Oregon that will visit but it will likely be short visits as opposed to a week stay at the beach.

Don’t get me wrong, we are still going to have a great holiday season but this year it will be different. Fortunately all of our families are computer connected so chatting with one another and sharing photos is easy to do and sometimes it’s more fun since there are several young children in the mix that love to email and receive emails. There will be more gifts and goodies being mailed this year and I’m sure more greeting cards too. For me that’s great because my girlfriend who is a food writer and great baker will have the house smelling delicious for quite awhile. Hopefully I will be able to contain my test tasting and keep my waist line in check!

But we will miss the camaraderie of the missing visitors and the pleasure of showing off the village and its residents. Perhaps next holiday season we will be back on track and people can have the luxury of having both time and money to plan their holiday coastal getaway. In fact that is my Christmas wish besides peace and goodwill towards one another; just let us get back to being able to getaway for holiday visits with family and friends.

I sincerely hope you can if you want to!!

To reach Rick Schultze email yarick@pioneer.net