Post Offices – Life of Brian

Starting Home

Monday, March 16, 2026

But first, California. Another lighthouse, a Klamath with no Falls post office, some big-ass trees, and a Roadside America stop. Tomorrow, northward bound.

: Battery Point Lighthouse in Crescent City, CA

: Klamath, CA 95548 (3/16/26)

: Small Car – Big Trees

: Solar Flare

: Paul Bunyan & Babe the Blue Ox

Today’s eight post offices brings my total to 356 of the state’s “total” of 388, or I’m now 92% finished. In the two weeks of March I have made three separate trips: a one-night outing, a day trip, and this 4-day event, capturing 44 post offices. All the rest are in the far northeast of the state. Those will have to wait until April; I need a break.

: Allegany – The post office was nowhere near where Google said it would be, and I couldn’t research where it might be because I was too deep into the forest away from US-101 with zero service. Turned out it is a couple miles further down the road. (3/15/26)

: Langlois – An unincorporated community along US-101 that was once famous for its blue cheese until the cheese factory burned down in the 1950s. (3/15/26)

: Port Orford – Prototypical small Oregon coast town named for George Walpole, Earl of Orford. He became extravagant and increasingly eccentric and eventually died insane. (3/15/26)

: Ophir – The post office is not actually in Ophir but a few miles down the road in another census-designated area called Nesika Beach. (3/15/26)

: Wedderburn – It is to the north of, and across the mouth of, the Rogue River from Gold Beach, on U.S. Route 101. (3/15/26)

: Gold Beach – Originally named Ellensburg in the 1850s but later took the name Gold Beach after a beach near the mouth of the Rogue River where hundreds of placer mines extracted gold. (3/15/26)

: Agness – You really have to want to go here; it is 35 miles from the coast along the Rogue River on a windy, narrow road. But many people do for the fishing at the confluence of the Illinois & Rogue Rivers. (3/15/26)

: Brookings – This is the last town along the Oregon Coast on US-101 before you hit California. (3/15/26)

It wasn’t all business; I stopped at two lighthouses, Coquille River and Cape Blanco, and walked along the shore at low tide in a couple of places. I also received a compliment, I think, on the back window of the GTI.

: Coquille River Lighthouse

: Cape Blanco Lighthouse

: Pistol River North Beach

: Dope

Southwest Clean-Up

Saturday, March 14, 2026

Last Monday I contemplated doing a 4-day road trip to get to the last 21 post offices along the southern coast. Tonight I’m in Coos Bay. I broke it down into 9 on Saturday and 12 on Sunday. Once again Google Maps led me astray, and I could only find eight of the nine; the Allegany post office was nowhere near where they said it would be. I couldn’t research where it might be because I was deep into the forest away from US-101, so I had zero service.

After finding those eight, it was only 1:00 pm, so it was way too early for the hotel check-in. I decided to head down the coast some more and shrink Sunday’s quota of twelve. The next town south on US-101 was Bandon, about 30 miles away. That round trip would only kill an hour, so once in Bandon, I headed inland on OR-42 to grab four more post offices that were deep into the woods like Allegany. Thankfully, all four were where Google Maps said they should be.

At the hotel I researched the Allegany post office further. I tried searching for the address given for the place on Apple Maps, and it pinpointed the town’s community center, a couple miles further down the road from where Google said it was. So tomorrow that’ll be the first place I head.

Of the last 8 I need to find, 7 are in towns right on US-101. The seventh town, Agness, is a ways inland along the Rogue River, and the road to get there is on the south side of the river, and Agness is on the north side. I have to drive 3-1/2 miles past it to get to a bridge and go back those 3-1/2 miles, take a picture, and then reverse the route.

: Elkton – The town has nicknamed itself as Bass Capitol of Oregon, probably because it is where Elk Creek meets the Umpqua River. (3/14/26)

: Scottsburg – Is located at what was the headwaters of navigation on the Umpqua River, some 20 miles from the ocean. For a short time in the 1850s and 1860s, it was a seaport that serviced the interior of southern Oregon.(3/14/26)

: Reedsport – This PO is inside something that looks very mid-century modern to me. (3/14/26)

: Gardiner – I drove right by this one at first; there was no blue box out front, and the sun was glaring off the window, so I couldn’t see the name. (3/14/26)

: Lakeside – A city that has 3 fairly large lakes and is the gateway to the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. (3/14/26)

: North Bend – According to Wikipedia, this is not to be confused with North Bend, WA, or Bend, OR, which sounds like something I just might do. (3/14/26)

: Coos Bay – This is the main post office in the city proper. There is a satellite one closer to the coast. (3/14/26)

: Coos Bay – A smaller local substation called Empire. (3/14/26)

: Bandon – Is located on the south side of the mouth of the Coquille River and was named by George Bennet, who settled nearby in 1873 and named the town after Bandon in Ireland, his hometown. (3/14/26)

: Coquille – A nice little town just a few miles from the coast. I ended up eating at a Subway where I was the only customer. (3/14/26).

: Broadbent – It is an unincorporated community named after C.E. Broadbent, who started a cheese factory here. (3/14/26)

: Powers – The Wagner House, thought to be the oldest pioneer dwelling in the region, is adjacent to a railroad museum, that which I passed right by to get to the post office. (3/14/26)

: Myrtle Point – Those red, white & blue stripes stop before they reach the Mexican restaurant to the right of the post office in the building. (3/14/26)

Ten Little Post Offices

Monday, March 9, 2026

Knocked off another 10 post offices yesterday. Now there are just 21 more to capture along the coast, and I’m thinking that it is time for a 4-day trip to get all that are left out there. I either do it this weekend or wait until the first weekend in April to avoid Oregon school’s spring breaks. But if I wait until April, the rates for staying on the coast will probably cost a bunch more because it’ll be the beginning of their season. I’ll make that a game-time decision on, say, Thursday morning.

: Blachly – Maybe the large building to the left was once the community’s general store. (3/8/26)

: Deadwood – No Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok or Wyatt Earp, pretty much this post office and a market/tavern. (3/8/26)

: Swisshome – Behind the 2 SUVs are doors that made me think that there were a couple of very small living quarters. (3/8/26)

: Mapleton – The post office had half the bottom floor of the building and the rest was small apartments. (3/8/26)

: Westlake – This town is nicknamed Dune City as it is the epicenter of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. (3/8/26)

: Florence – The coastal town that was my turnaround spot. I bought gas and a soda, took a picture of the post office, and started back. (3/8/26)

: Walton – A small community halfway between Eugene and the coast that is not where the TV Waltons lived. (3/8/26)

: Noti – An unincorporated community that is where the Willamette Valley meets the Coastal Cascades. (3/8/26)

: Veneta – The typical postal customer who picks up their mail and then sits in the car reading it. I have learned it is impossible to wait them out… (3/8/26)

: Elmira – Last post office of the day before driving the hundred odd miles home. (3/8/26)

Tax And Accounting Day

Wednesday, March 4, 2026

I used to file income taxes as soon as possible, like the first week of February, and in the early days, middle of January. I’m slipping, as it is early March and I’m just now filing for 2025. Looking back at last year, I was even later; it was the middle of this month. The way I have the taxes taken out, I can usually keep my refund in the two-figure range, but this year it is a huge $110. 🙂

I also did a little accounting. I have separate maps (by having separate Gmail addresses), and the post offices I have to find are associated with brian.the.red and the ones found are linked to mr.miata. After this past weekend’s 13 finds, I am down to needing just 63 post offices. That figure is coming from the Excel spreadsheet I have to keep track of my progress. The trouble came when I updated the Google Maps for each category; they were saying I needed to find 62, and I had already found 326. So I was one short in finds and one too many in founds. Should be easy.

The web will tell you that you can download your Google Maps Lists, but I couldn’t get that feature to work. I ended up opening the list and copy-and-pasting the list into a text editor. I picked the need-to-find list first because it was the smallest. I opened the modified .txt file in Excel and compared it to my master spreadsheet. I was missing the town of Ophir. I then attacked the much larger need-to-find list. First I looked to see if Ophir was on there; it wasn’t, darn. Fortunately, I found the extra item within the first couple dozen towns I sorted through.

The Gordon House

Monday, March 2, 2026

The Gordon House

I knew of this house as I had seen signs mentioning it on my previous passes through this part of the Willamette Valley looking for post offices. And I’ve always been interested in Frank Lloyd Wright, as I kind of wanted to be an architect in high school. When one of the Moss Motoring Challenge points was a famous piece of architecture, I wanted to go to Fallingwater in Pennsylvania to get that. And we did; I took several from the parking lot, but unfortunately, I couldn’t get the car, flyer, and house in the same shot.

And today, after seeing the second sign for the Frank Lloyd Wright House, I decided to follow them to its conclusion. Cool house, and had I wanted to, I could have toured the inside of the home for twenty bucks if I had only been there on a weekend afternoon and had made a reservation a long time ago. Basically the same scenario as Fallingwater back in 2015.

Before I got to Silverton to see the Gordon House I did grab these two small post offices along OR-34

: Tidewater – I’m not sure who the customers are for this post office. It seemed to have been plopped down in the middle of nowhere. Yet after taking the photo of the place while sitting in the GTI checking if I had a usable image, a car pulled in next to me and went inside to mail a letter. (3/2/26)

: Alsea – Unlike like the earlier in the morning Tidewater post office, this one made more sense as it was in an actual community. (3/2/26)

Eleven Equals Thirteen

Sunday, March 1, 2026

Yaquina Head Lighthouse

I took eleven post office photos today, and eliminated two more because there were two post offices that have been shuttered since I made the jumbo spreadsheet back in 2019. They were the one called South Beach that is just south of Newport and the one further down US101 for Seal Rock that have been decommissioned. Thus the total number of post offices for the state now stands at 388 instead of 390. This is not to say that once I have finished the rest of them, there might be 2 new ones added that I don’t know about. Once I get the two tomorrow on the way home, I will be down to just 63 left.

: Hebo – My first stop of the day along US-101 and the skies were a pretty blue. Later post offices were photographed under cloudy or foggy or misty conditions. (3/1/26)

: Cloverdale – While most post offices are rather drab in color, the blue here in Cloverdale rivaled the green of the GTI for saturation. (3/1/26)

: Pacific City – This town was a few miles closer to the Pacific Ocean than US-101, so it had a nice quiet feel to it. (3/1/26)

: Otis – Is that front plate on straight? (3/1/26)

: Neotsu – The community of Neostu is on the 45th parallel north, which is halfway from the North Pole to the equator. (3/1/26)

: Lincoln City – The name “Lincoln City” was chosen from contest entries submitted by local schoolchildren. The contest was held when it was determined that using one of the five communities’ names that made up the city would be too controversial. (3/1/26)

: Gleneden Beach – See those two blue doors above the roof of the GTI? That is the entrance to the post office and there is a sign saying so but it is in the shadow. (3/1/26)

: Depoe Bay – Somehow I expected Depoe Bay to have a grander post office building. (3/1/26)

: Yachats – Even though it was Sunday, this post office’s parking lot was very full. Apparently the restaurant to the right was a popular after-church dining spot. (3/1/26)

: Waldport – Even though this was right on my route home for Monday morning, I stopped and grabbed it while I was passing through on the way to Yachats. (3/1/26)

: Newport – This was the town I was overnighting in, but before I snapped this photo I continued down the coast another 25 miles to get a couple more post office photos first. (3/1/26)