June 4. 2015. Nehalem State Park

 

June 4, 2015.  Here are a few pictures from Nehalem State Park.  A couple are from yesterday.  Today was a terrible picture day.  I took several dozen, but they were lousy pictures for a variety of reasons. The kiteboarding and the sand sculpture were taken today.  The wind was 30 mph, which brought out the kiteboarders and left the sculpted sand.

Today, I have no stories for you.  It was just a quiet day on the ocean.

June 3, 2015. Nehalem State Park.

 

June 3, 2015.  The second and third pictures above are mirror images of each other.  The second picture was taken from Highway 101 as we approached Nehalem Beach.  The third was taken from Nehalem Beach, looking up at the pull-out where the second picture was taken.

So, we finish this trip where we finished the 1988 Great Tour of America. Nehalem Beach was our last stop before heading home after 60-plus days on the road.  We will be here at least three nights.  We may stay longer or just start home.  We are 1900 miles distant from there.  I expect the drive home will take 3-4 days under the best of circumstances.  

After settling in, we walked nearly two hours along the beach. I am afraid I got a little camera crazy on the walk.  I took over fifty photos.  You see the best of those on this page.  There were many more I wanted you to see, but I didn't want to test your tolerance.  You may see some of those in the days ahead.  They are too good just to be stored on my computer and never seen by anyone other than me.  

We saw a couple of deer today.  The first spotting was as we drove into the campground.  There was a young man walking along the road.  He waved us down and pointed down a trail.  There was a small doe on the trial.  She seemed unperturbed by our presence.  Later, as we left the beach, we saw another grazing on grass across the road.  She, too, seemed to be totally oblivious to us.  I took a couple of long-distance pictures just to be sure I had something if the deer bolted. I gradually moved closer and got a series of pictures, including the final picture you see above.  The picture suggests I was very close to the deer, and I was. However, it was shot with a 300mm zoom lens, so I wasn't as close as you might think.  I was probably 15-20 feet away.  Even so, I was much closer than deer will normally allow humans to get.  

Tomorrow?  Well, I don't know about tomorrow.  There is a bike trail that circles the campground.  We may ride.  We may walk again.  We may sit in the sun and read.  We may do all three.  Time is getting short and I hate to waste it by doing something productive.   

June 2, 2015. Disappointment Bay, WA to Cannon Beach, OR.

June 2, 2015.  With not much travel, it has been a pleasant day.  As the crow flies, we are about 40 miles south of where we began the day.  We are now in Cannon Beach, OR, known for its "Haystack Rock".  The basalt rock juts up several hundred feet above the surf and is a distinctive landmark for miles.

The beach was not crowded but there were a few kite fliers, families and couples walking.  We parked T-Harvey several blocks from the beach, then walked from one end to the other.  After checking into the campground, we spent about an hour in the hot tub and pool.  We settled in and with the aid of cable TV, we are watching the Ken Burns series on the Roosevelts.

I hope your day has been as relaxing and pleasant.

June 1, 2015. Cape Disappointment State Park.

 

June 1, 2015.  The Lewis and Clark Interpretative Center and Cape Disappointment Lighthouse.  Still unable to get an Internet signal at our campsite, we drove to the park ranger’s station this morning.  Just two miles from the campsite, we found the Internet.  I uploaded yesterday’s entry to the blog and we parked T-Harvey.  The Interpretative Center was .6 of a mile uphill on a road with a sign that said, “No RVs.”

The Center is constructed above Fort Canby, a pre-Civil War fort at the mouth of the Columbia River constructed in 1852.  There, canons protected the US from invasion – by whom, I am not sure.  So far as I know, no one has tried to invade the US by way of the Columbia River.  Maybe that proves the usefulness of the fort.  The fort is a small structure constructed into the side of the bluff overlooking the river flowing into the Pacific.  It appears, from the number of bunks, that about two dozen soldiers would have been assigned there any at one time.

A path through the woods takes visitors another .6 of a mile, mostly up, from the Center to the Cape Disappointment Light House.  The lighthouse was commissioned in 1856.  There was a bit of a haze today, so visibility was limited.  I suspect that on a clear day, the Lewis and Clark River can been seen, about two miles up the Columbia River.  It was on the Lewis and Clark River that Fort Clatsop was constructed.

It was about a mile and a half back from the lighthouse to T-Harvey, interestingly, again mostly uphill.  Or, maybe it just seemed that way.  When you start and end at the same place, the ups have to be exactly offset by the downs.  It sure seemed like there were more ups than downs.  You understand that, don’t you?  Annie was proud that she got her 10,000 steps in today.  I was proud to be her escort.  

May 31, 2015. Grayland to Cape Disappointment State Park.

May 31, 2015.  On Sunday, we drove from Grayland to Cape Disappointment State Park.  Along the 115 miles, we stopped to do laundry and grocery shop in Raymond, population 2882.  We were the only washers in the laundromat.  We were the only mild-mannered shoppers in the grocery store. 

The man ahead of us in the checkout line got into an argument with the cashier over the price of pork and whether he was entitled to a frequent shopper’s discount.  The customer sported a fedora, khaki slacks, a sport shirt and a well-trimmed beard.  He appeared a bit of a dandy who thought his natty attire entitled him to special treatment.    

The cashier was frustrated and anxious following the encounter.  We were next in line so we engaged him with a smile and a commiseration, “That fellow was just having a bad day. (I sensed he has a lot of those)  Don’t let him ruin yours.”  He expressed his appreciation for the kind words and he returned our smiles.  There, that was an easy good deed, wasn’t it?

My morning began in a most unpleasant fashion, too.  As we left the campground in Grayland, I stoppedat the dump station.  Dump stations are where the RV’s holding tanks are emptied.  I gloved up, pulled out the flexible sewer hose and removed the cap from the sewer line in Harvey.  I don’t know how it happened, but the shutoff valves to both the gray water and black water tanks had jarred open.  When I removed the cap, I was met with a Niagara-sized gush of brown, chunky water. 

I tried to get the flexible hose to snap on to the outlet.  It took just a second or two but it seemed like minutes.  In that time about two gallons of stuff gushed out, onto my shoes, my socks, my pants and all over the pavement.  It began flowing down the pavement forming a river of small, brown, chunky liquid. 

Fortunately, there was no one behind me at the dump station.  That really would have been embarrassing.  I finally got the flexible hose attached, then washed the clumpy stuff off the drive and into the grass, where it blended in unnoticeably.  I managed to clean most of the mess just as another RV pulled up behind me.  I pulled away from the dump station, around the corner, parked, washed up and changed my clothes.  By the time I finally felt clean, the gray water tank was probably full again.  I did not go back to dump it however.  I wanted distance between me and that dump station. 

Rule number one at the dump station:  make certain the shut-off valves are shut off before removing the cap.  Believe me when I say this, that is a rule I will not violate again.  Life’s most humiliating moments are life’s best lessons.  I have learned my lesson very well. 

There is no Internet signal here at the campsite.  I will move around tomorrow to see if I can upload this to the blog.  In the meantime, pleasant dreams.  I am sure they will be better than mine.  I will very likely dream of floating down a brown, chunky river in a kayak.  

May 30, 2015. Last Day in Grayland, WA.

May 30, 2015.  It has been another cool day in Washington.  The sun came out this afternoon for a couple of hours, but most of the day has been overcast.

We biked and walked around the area.  The first few pictures show a less prosperous part of Grayland.  But, once one enters the park all that is left behind. Both needle and leafy trees color the campground.  Beyond the dunes is the Pacific.  Today was an active day on the beach.  The campground is filled to capacity and many campers chose to spend their day near the sea.  Kite flyers, fishermen and children all enjoyed the day there.

Annie and I walked the beach twice today, first when it was crowded, then later this evening when many beachcombers had returned to their campsites.  On our morning walk, a young woman driving along the beach with her boyfriend got stuck in the sand.  She spun her tires until the frame came to rest on top of the sand.  Luckily, a park ranger came along with a shovel.  He scooped the sand in front of and behind the wheels.  The boyfriend, the ranger and I pushed while the woman tried to reverse the car from the sand.  It worked.  She made it back to the hard surface and was thankful to the ranger and the friendly beachwalker.  Annie told me I looked like Earl from the Pickles comic strip.  I think I deserved better, don't you?

We leave tomorrow morning for Cape Disappointment State Park, less than one-hundred miles south of here.  Cape Disappointment is at the mouth of the Columbia River where it discharges into the Pacific.  There is a Lewis and Clark Interpretative Center there.  Fort Clatsop, the Corps of Discovery's winter camp in 1805-1806, is several miles upstream on a tributary of the Columbia.  That river, formerly called the Netul River, is now aptly named the Lewis and Clark River.  It was renamed in their honor in 1925.

They deserved that, don't you think?