If you are in the Nelscott area of Lincoln City and catch the scent of good, strong coffee wafting on a gentle breeze, you are probably close to Zefir.

Get your eyes, ears and taste buds ready for a weekend of classic cars, modern audio and local foods and brews, as Lincoln City gets all revved up for a weekend of fun fund-raisers.

“There’s a book in that.”

Words most aspiring and active writers long to hear.

o take in all of the arts events that can happen in summer and fall on the Oregon Coast, you used to have to zoom up and down the entire 363-mile coastline. Now, thanks to Zoom, you can still enjoy some of those events without even leaving your house.

If you’ve never looked out from Cape Lookout, spit off the end of the Bayocean Spit or burned some energy at the Coal Creek Trailhead, now is a great time to B-I-N-GO outside and win prizes with a fun adventure game designed by Tillamook County Wellness.

On Newport’s northside it is time to leave the beach, take Highway 101 around Yaquina Head and return to the beach. How to leave the beach for Highway 101?

When I proposed this series on Oregon Coast Trail detours, things were the “old normal.”

You develop a bit of weather toughness when you live in the Pacific Northwest. As the saying goes (with a slight modification), “If you like the weather, just wait 10 minutes.”

Yachats River Road is a beautiful drive or bike ride, and includes a quick side trip to one of the Oregon coast’s beautiful restored covered bridges.

With two hybrid concerts under their belts, the team at the Lincoln City Cultural Center is ready and raring for more, with a QuaranTunes Concert Series that will continue through September. These events offer both in-person performances and live streaming services, so that cultural center patrons can safely enjoy the best in live music.

Manzanita’s Hoffman Center Gallery is running a new summer show through Sunday, Aug. 30, featuring the works of Dorothy Holmes Mohler, Lloyd Lindley and Bev Cordova.

Primitive and playful art will fill Lincoln City’s Chessman Gallery for “Bare Bones & Thrown Stone,” a new show opening Friday, Aug. 14, with works by Judy Vogland, Taylor Ryder and Patrick Horsley.

I weave my bike between hanging mini-hammocks and a set of Adirondack chairs circling an infinity fire on a misty morning in early August.

Computers have been a great shopping aid during quarantine times, but you’ll find them quite resistant to your charms if you try to haggle down a price.

Ten miles south of the Tillamook Creamery, just north of Highway 101, flows Munson Falls, the highest waterfall on the Oregon Coast. Only a quarter mile from the dirt parking lot, the 319-foot falls splits the emerald box canyon in two. Though the three-tiered falls headlines the park’s marquee, the forest here also shelters some of Oregon’s oldest and tallest trees.     

You can do culture with a small group or no group at all thanks to a new summer concert series from the Lincoln City Cultural Center. Performed to small, live audiences or live-streamed to homes on the Oregon Coast and beyond, the concerts will continue on Thursday, Aug. 6, with a performance from coastal favorites the Perry Gerber Band.

Is there anything more Oregonian than the rapidly growing sport of ax throwing? Sure, you can try it in hipster bars in Brooklyn, or do it next to sommeliers in San Francisco, but browse a few photos on the websites of those businesses and something will immediately stand out — the decor just screams Pacific Northwest.

One frustrating thing about museums is the lack of price tags. You can’t wander through a colonial history museum, for example, see a cute writing desk from which Martha Washington penned letters and think, “Ah, that’s exactly the piece my office needs to tie the room together.”

You can shop online any day of the week, but how about shopping on lot or on lawn? Ditch the computer and browse IRL at one of two new weekday markets, like the Friday market in the parking lot of the newly revived Salishan Marketplace.

It’s hard to get Oregon naturalists to clam up about all the muscle that’s been put into creating and maintaining our Oregon Marine Reserves: areas in created to protect the incredibly diverse marine ecosystems this area has to offer and to enhance the health of the species that call it home.