Sand-filled Days (Pacific City, OR)

Lots of beach scenes this time...

We visited Fort Stevens State Park at the mouth of Columbia River.  The old shipwreck was the most interesting part of the park. The fort still has the old gun batteries.  Some are 90 years old.

The Bones of  the Peter Iredale - early 1900s

A view of Cape Disappointment from Ft. Stevens.

Cape Disappointment, WA

There were quite a few Swallow's nests filled with babies.  Mommies and Daddies stayed busy feeding the hungry little ones.  The babies certainly knew which parent belonged to them.

We drove south of Cannon Beach.  We stopped at some pullovers to see the view. 

Before leaving Seaside, we took an evening walk on the Promenade.  Seaside was hosting a Volley Ball Competition.  It looked like they had setup 100 volley ball nets, but the main attraction was the competition.

  

Not everyone was interested in volley ball.  Many were just enjoying the warm summer evening on the beach.

Before we left Seaside, we spent one afternoon at Cannon Beach to see the Haystack.  Even the heavy mist with the sun peeking out added a great atmosphere to the beach photos.

Pacific City

We moved to Pacific City last Wednesday.  The Welcome sign says 'Please be "Bear Aware"'.  We were warned not to leave any food outside our motorhome.  Lots of wildlife in the area - bear, raccoon, and rabbits.  So far, we have only seen rabbits.  The rabbits are not shy and some will come towards us if they think we have food.

Our site is a short walk across the road and down a semi-steep dune to the ocean.  We can hear the surf while we are sitting outside.  The beach has some interesting rock formations.

Looking towards Pacific City

We are about 3 miles north of Pacific City by road.  By beach, we can walk there in less than 2 miles, but we have to go over a very steep dune to get there.

The man in the picture below had a ball that he was throwing for his dog.  That dog had eyes for nothing else.  

A man and his dog

We drove the three Capes Route.  It was very scenic.

There was some road work being done just outside of Oceanside.  While we were waiting our turn, this was our view. 

We have been to Cape Meares State Park  before.  This is the shortest lighthouse in Oregon. Sandy tried to get a good photo of the Three Arch Rocks from the lighthouse, but the low lying clouds were not cooperating.

Near the lighthouse is the Octopus Tree - another hard subject to photograph.  The sign says the Sitka Spruce is about 250-300 years old.

We will be moving south to Newport, OR this coming Thursday.

NW Oregon's Coast (Seaside, OR)

We have been spending a lot of time outdoors visiting the area.  Seaside is just as lovely as we remember it.  We walked along Seaside's Promenade along the beach and then around the downtown area.  So here are a few of the sights we saw on one walk...

Quaint gingerbread style beach houses...

 

Love birds in the garden.

 People and birds mingling together.

Psst!  Can I have the extra coffee?

 Retro and bright colors....

Along with lighthouse style buildings adds a wonderful festive feel to the downtown area.

We stopped by the Carousel Mall to watch the carousel.

 Flowers everywhere....

 We visited the Ecola State Park south of Seaside on Hwy 101 and just north of Cannon Beach.   

 

We had a great view of the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse.  The story of building the lighthouse and maintaining it is quite a defeat against weather and sea.

Tillamook Rock Lighthouse

Wind bent trees

Last, but not least...this little guy was sitting pretty on what looks like a dry Queen Anne's Lace flower. He is missing patches of feathers, but that seems to add to his character.

La Conner and Mt Vernon WA

Since our last post, we spent 3 weeks at a LaConner Thousand Trails and 4 days at nearby Mt Vernon Thousand Trails in WA.  Below are a few highlights from our time in the area.

La Conner, WA Thousand Trails Preserve

As soon as we setup our site and ate lunch, we went for a quick walk. Sandy wanted to look for the residential Bald Eagles and Dan wanted to look at a couple of different sites since our first site was small and narrow  (we did indeed move 2 days later to a much nicer spot).

 

Dan sighted two Eagles sitting up high in the trees near the bay…all right!

 

 This Bald Eagle had his wings out. I’m not sure if he was hot or drying off his feathers…hmm either way it made for a good shot.

Do you see Mama?

Maaaaa! We're hungry!

On our way back, there were quite a few song birds singing their favorite tunes. My favorite photo was of the baby birds waiting for Mama Bird to return. I was hoping to get a couple of photos of her feeding them. When she did return, she would not feed them with me standing under the tree so I left.

Several days later we saw our first juvenile Bald Eagle! He was sitting in the tree on Lone Tree Beach. A popular spot for Eagles hunting for fish. Except for his feathers and beak, he looks full grown.

Caught plucking out his white feathers.

And like most typical teenagers, he is in a hurry to grow up and be an adult.  We watched him pluck quite a few of his white feathers out.

Practicing his Regal pose

And to prove he was an adult, he did several regal poses just to impress his viewers.

Lone Tree Beach

The Maiden of Deception Pass (La Conner, WA)

One of our many favorite stops in this area is Rosario Beach State Park. It is a small inlet close to Deception Pass Bridge with deep waters allowing boaters to come and go. Most of the time it is a quiet area, but once in a while a naval jet fighter will fly over to remind us that we are not far from civilization. 

view from the pier

This is a Samish story pole called The Maiden of Deception Pass. There's an interesting story about her printed on plaques surrounding her.  People slowly circle the pole while they read her story. I also found a page on the carving with pictures of the story pole here.

They say you can still see the Maiden's hair floating in the Deception Pass waters....

We spent some time watching the Swallows zip around us. I did not even try to take their pictures since I'm sure I would either miss or get nothing but a blur of a black streak across the photo. Then Dan noticed one sitting on a cross beam just below the pier. When we looked a little closer, there were quite a few sitting on the the cross beams resting.

peeking at you, peeking at me

fluffed up and cooling off

At the Car Wash

This gorgeous Dahlia was growing outside the car wash's office. I wonder how many people stop to take photos of it?

 

Over The Rainbow Bridge (La Conner, WA)

 

Sandy says: We visited La Conner on a sunny day - surprise! It is such an enchanting town and I have been under its spell since we visited here three years ago.

We walked the main street and as usual, I took way too many pictures. La Conner's quaint downtown area on the Swinomish Channel is filled with wonderful gift shops, galleries, and museums. Oh! Speaking of museums...there's a quilt museum here and I plan to visit them next week. The Quilt & Textile Museum is up the hill in an an old Victorian home. I have been there before and really had a great time looking at quilts and wandering through the beautiful old mansion.

Views from the docks

and this view at the opposite end of the channel with the Rainbow Bridge

La Conner has so many shops to look through including a quilt shop called Fabric Déva (no website). I actually did not buy a thing from the shop this time....only because I could not make up my mind, got frustrated, and decided I'll just have to go back again.

The Ginger Grater on 1st Street

There are a lot of nice restaurants and pubs along the waterfront with sitting areas on the dockside. I love the looks of this one. It has a waterfall coming off the dock and into the channel. People are sitting nearby eating while enjoying the sunshine and listening to the water fall into the channel.

Even La Conner's bridge is enchanting. This bridge has been a burnt orange since 1957. After getting the first coat of primer, the town's people decided they liked the color and asked DOT not to add the typical green coat of paint. It has been burnt orange ever since and is known as the Rainbow Bridge.

Rainbow Bridge



Welcome Cats, Quilts, and Museums (La Conner, WA)

I visited La Conner Quilt and Textile Museum yesterday. The Tudor-style Victorian mansion was fabulous to see by itself, but the old quilts on display along with the Japanese quilt exhibit made the visit perfect!

This mansion was built in 1891 and was known as the Gaches Castle.

The mansion almost did not make it after being gutted and turned into apartments for 30 years. One of the tenants caused a major fire that took out the roof and third floor.

There was talk of tearing down the old place, but one man saw a historic site that needed to be saved and started a restoration group.

They did a wonderful job restoring this mansion.

I just love the colors in this quilt! 

They even restored the old fireplaces with Italian tile just as Mrs. Gaches would have liked it.

There are two exhibits at the museum from Japan right now. One is "Ainu Embroidery" and the other is "At Play - Asobi: Quilts from Japan". The Ainu Embroidery also included reverse appliqué. I spent a lot of time studying the artwork. I think I'm going to give reverse appliqué a try sometime soon. The embroidery consisted of "Cord" stitching or what I call couching. The coat in the photo below is all reverse appliqué and cord embroidery.

The quilts were extraordinary and made from silk, loose woven cotton, and hemp. One quilt had me and another woman with our noses only inches from its work. The quilt was filled with small scenes of the old life in Japan. Beautiful gardens, detailed robes, hair, and their faces were just amazing. I could have spent more time looking and studying all the quilts, but the museum was very busy that day.

No photos allowed, so here's some samples from a post card. 

Back to the real world again.....across the street from the museum was a small butterfly garden for the public. A very serene spot to relax and smell the flowers.

(Mount Vernon, WA)

We went to Mount Vernon Farmer's Market a couple of weekends ago.

displays of fruits....

and flowers.

Dogs making friends

A little Shakespeare for entertainment.

After buying some delicious 9-grain bread, fruit, and veggies, we walked a couple of blocks to the downtown area. Right on the first corner was a quilt shop called Calico Creations! No website, but they are on Facebook.

Out and About

Here are some photos from our drive on Chuckanut Drive.

Framed views from a pullover area

Tree hugging a rock

Views of Larrabee State Park:

Larrabee State Park

 

And a few from the RV park at the Oak Harbor NAS:

Great views of the ocean

See the RV up on the hill?

Driftwood sculptures are scattered throughout the park

There were a couple of JOY driftwood signs

It has been such a joy and I hope we return soon.

Traveling South (Mount Vernon, WA)

Today, August 5th, we departed Mt Vernon, and are spending one night at Chehalis Thousand Trails.     Next we will head down the Oregon coastline for a few weeks using our Thousand Trails parks membership.  About halfway down the coast we will cut inland and then down the I5 corridor through CA, heading back towards our winter gig as hosts at a wildlife preserve in Patagonia AZ Nov-Feb.