September 28-30, 2015 Mount St Helens, Washington

 

We left Astoria and headed toward Mt St Helen’s. Drove up the Columbia river, crossed on the Lewis and Clark bridge into Washington. The big ocean going liners come up the river, probably to load up with lumber, this is only one of the large lumber yards in the area.

 

Mt St Helen’s from the visitors center near Silverlake. The bus parked at Silver Cove RV park.  A commercial RV park, not bad, not very crowded.

 

It is John’s birthday. I cooked him dinner and made cupcakes.  Isn’t he just the cutest??This Bigfoot is coming for the car!

 

We stopped at Coldwater lake and put the boats on. The lake was created from debris from the eruption in 1980. Mt St Helen seen over the lake. The fogs or dust, or maybe steam in the crater. 

The vine maples are turning red on the shore. The lake was glass smooth. It was gorgeous.

 

Mt St Helen’s erupted  May  17 1980. A before  and after.  First the mountain bulged, then the side slide off, then it had a lateral eruption, the  side exploded. The second photo shows it today and the picture below it has a dotted line where it used to be.

Huge trees close by were uprooted and pulverized, farther out they were just laid down, where it was shielded by mountains the trees stayed upright but were scorched and died. Everything was covered with two feet or more of ash.

 

The gray piles in the middle of the photo are pieces of Mt St Helen’s that were blown miles. They call them hummocks.

Red maple leaves, green sorrels, penstamen, wooly bear, lupine and noble firs.

 

We hiked around Seaquest State Park this afternoon. It is a second growth forest, which means it was logged in the 1940’s and this is what has grown back since. . We kept running into this- Closed for logging, but managed to hike 3.5 miles, probably going in circles looking for open trails. But it was a beautiful sunny day in a pretty place.

Look at this gigantic piece of logging equipment. That is a burly saw blade at the bottom. A fern leaf and flower seen today.

Before we went out hiking we replaced the fabric on the valance above the window. It used to be that gross green stuff in the inset. The new stuff looks much better. You can also see the lovely roses John got for me. The closest town is Toutle, Washington. Cute name.

September 26-27,2015 Fort Stevens, Oregon

It was a beautiful sunny day in the mid 60’s. Perfect day for the beach. We walked around the point of the peninsula.

The sea grass was lovely, the sky was blue ,there were puffy clouds and a gentle breeze.  Pelicans in the sky.

Pelicans over the waves.  Beach grass, sand and blue sky.

 

We watched this ship come through the Columbia Bar, one of the most dangerous river/ocean crossings. They are required to have a river pilot to get through the shifting sand bars.  Water, mud and grass.

 

We drove the car right up onto the beach, had lunch and watched a kite surfer in front of Astoria.

  This cool camper was hand built. The owner used to work in a boat shop and made this himself.

 

Sea Urchins in a tide pool, barnacles, wave patterns, limpet, pelicans and a muscle shell-that to me, who worked in the lab so long looks like a giardia.

The next day was just as beautiful. There were horses on the beach, and cars.

A line of sanderlings along the beach, then spreading out.

And fly off. More horses came along.

 

After dinner we drove back onto the beach to wait for the eclipse of the moon. A huge ship, full of cars went by. Sunset was lovely.

 

Patterns of water on the beach. Then the moon in full eclipse rose out of the sunset clouds. It was totally eclipsed and pink from the sunset  and turned red as it got dark. I used my new telephoto lense   and got this blurry shot of the blood moon.

September 25, 2015 Long Beach, Oregon

Quite the day, 3 museums! Cold –high in the mid 60’s and drizzly anyway

We went across the  Columbia river on the Astoria-Megler bridge into Washington. Over 4 miles long, this bridge is the longest continuous three-span bridge in the world.  It was completed in 1966. The state line is closer to Washington side. Oregon mileposts begin at the state line, so  you are already at milepost three when you reach land.  Our first stop was at the World Kite museum and Hall of Fame. It claims to be the only American museum dedicated exclusively the thrill, Joy, art, science and world history of kites. More than 1,300 kites from around the world are on display, including a special Asian Kite Collection featuring elaborate hand-made examples from China, Malaysia and Japan.  Every year in August they have the Washington State International Kite Festival.

 

Some of the kites we saw. A huge bird, the three dragon head kite is 70 feet long with 210 pieces, a crab, 4 tiny kites-about 6 inches tall, a huge Asian face kite-maybe 12 + feet tall, a kite made of leaves,  huge barrage kites were flown to protect unarmed merchant vessels  forming the equivalent of a aerial minefield. The 2000 foot piano wire they were flown from were strong enough to shear the wings off enemy vessels attempting to strafe convoys, a large embroidered kite, a blue bat kite –blue bats are good luck and kites that were used by the navy for target practice. Really a pretty museum.

Our next stop was Marsh’s Free Museum. It was mostly a large curio shop with a museum on the outer walls. A treasure trove of a curiosity shop that has been entertaining visitors since 1935. A few of the displays include a shrunken head, a two headed calf and 2 headed pig. The sea gulls we saw later, I needed a photo to fill in the 4.

There were lots of old vintage coin operated machines. A number of passion and love testers.  It is best known for Jake the alligator man.  Very entertaining place.  Our last museum stop was at the Cranberry museum. It was probably the most interesting.

 

We learned the history of cranberries, the key phases of the industry, from bog preparation and planting to marketing. There was a self-guided walking tour of cranberry bogs. Cranberries are vines not bushes. The bogs are not flooded till harvest when they float the berries up and collect them.

Some wild fox gloves I saw by the road, cranberry vines , cranberries and a cranberry color meter.  Our last stop was not a museum but  a road side pull out at Dismal Nitch. The Lewis and Clark party came down the Columbia river in dug out canoes they made. They were not very stable or easy to paddle. At this point they were caught in a severe winter storm with rain, high wind and huge waves on the river. They were trapped in this small nitch on the coast line in a narrow valley for 6 days. They were wet and cold, out of food, with their clothes rotting by then-miserable. They named this Dismal Nitch. There were interpretive signs and a small trail that led to this big bronze plaque. 

   

The view across the river from Dismal Nitch of Astoria , the bridge and pelicans. We wondered why they didn’t come up  and go into the restrooms at the road side pull out to get dry and dry their clothes with the hand dryers, or even cross the bridge. . .     The tide was out at the Dismal Nitch and the shoreline was lined with sea gulls on moss green rocks.