Pacific Northwest

Hi Everybody! Looks like we took a little snooze on our Blog writing. And it was an 11 month snooze at that! I guess we kind of lost our oomph. I have to admit that I have been distracted as well. After much prompting from friends, I have finally started to publish a quarterly magazine called Three Mirrors. You can learn more about it at Three-Mirrors.com. The magazine profiles my photography and prose.

So, let’s see. In our last exciting episode last May, we were leaving Northern California and heading to Oregon. I’ve always wanted to go to the Pacific Northwest and it sure exceeded my expectations. Even the ever present rain seemed wonderful and added to the mystique of the area.

Our first stop in June of 2022 was Cape Blanco State Park. The park is located in the western most point of Oregon. The cape may have been named by explorer Martín de Aguilar in 1603 for its appearance, as blanco means “white” in Spanish. We had a great time hiking on the beach and on the grasslands above the cliffs. My words and my photos in no way do justice to the beauty of this place. Check out this slide show.

One thing we had never seen before were the signs alerting us to Tsunami evacuation routes. Since 1854, 21 Tsunamis have impacted the Oregon coast. These large waves are caused by earthquakes under the ocean floor. I am happy to report that we have no first hand knowledge of Tsunamis!

As always, Shiny keeps us warm and dry in all kinds of weather. Our outer gear was getting a little soggy though.

After a couple of stops, we made our way to Bar View Jetty County Campground in the town of Rock Away Beach, Oregon. We were very excited to be meeting up with our friends Chuck and Terria and Donn and Judy. Both of these wonderful couples we met, by chance, on the road. We have become good friends with both and we still keep in contact. Terria and her family have been coming to this beach since they were kids so we learned a lot about this area from her. We also got to see her and her family in action. Up before dawn, out on the ocean fishing, and harvesting crabs. They would launch their boat, then on the way out to the fishing location, drop the crab pots. On their way back after fishing they would haul up the crab traps. They would dig for clams when the tide was right.

When they were back at the campground, it was all work, shucking clams, filleting lingcod & rockfish, and picking crab. I tried to help with the crab picking but what took them about 45 seconds took me about a half hour! We were very lucky to be guests at their dinner table. Yum! Here is a slideshow for you.

We got to see a cool old steam engine and we took lots of photos to send to our grandson.

I spent a lot of time trying to get some good pictures but, as I mentioned earlier, I fell short of capturing the beauty of the area.

Here are some final pictures from Rockaway Beach taken by our friend and fellow traveller, Donn.

After a very fun stay at Rockaway beach, we headed inland a bit to visit my friend Lee-Anne. She and I met in college and were good study partners and friends there. Somehow we have managed to stay in touch and it was a delight to spend a whole week with her and her husband, Peter.

The city of Salem was pretty amazing with a large network of walking trails made to suit people of all abilities and the walkways were busy with runners, cyclists, strollers, young families, old folks, you name it. It was very impressive.

There are also a number of fabulous gardens in the area and I sure had fun at them! Please check out this slideshow.

We headed out to Silver Falls State Park with Lee-Anne and Peter and were so impressed with the magnificence of the water falls there. Once again, my words and photos fall short! Here’s a slideshow of these amazing falls.

With our hearts full of friendship old and new, we headed back to the coast to Cape Disappointment, Washington. On the way, we stopped at the Tillamook Cremery. What an operation. It was hard to take in the scale of the production. We did make sure to stock up on our favorite cheeses though. What a treat!

At Cape Disappointment, we stayed at the state park. The cape was named on July 6, 1788, by British fur trader John Meares, who was sailing south from Nootka Island, Canada, in search of trade. He mistook the mouth of the Columbia River for a bay, which the ship could not enter due to a shallow shoal. Just missing the discovery of the river mentioned by Francisco Antonio Mourelle, he named them Cape Disappointment and Deception Bay. According to Wikipedia, Cape Disappointment sees about 2,552 hours of fog a year—the equivalent of 106 days—making it one of the foggiest places in the U.S!

We lost track of the days as we explored the beaches, trails and Lighthouses. Here’s a slideshow.

What the heck am I doing there, you ask? Well, let me tell you. I am trying to set up our new ‘Dishy‘. It’s a satellite dish that gives us access to the internet. The only caveat is that it needs a clear view to the north in order to get a good signal. On this day, I was trying to make Dishy visible so that the kids on bikes wouldn’t ride over it.

When we arrived at the campground, there was a warning sign about there being an over abundance of racoons. Larry figured they weren’t whistling dixie when this Momma got up on her hind legs and snarled at him.

OK! That’s all for now. Stay tuned for our next episode. Hopefully you won’t have to wait a year!!