Cannon Beach OR 04-10-2016

Taking some much needed get away time, Dave and I went to Cannon Beach, OR for the weekend.  Along the way we saw a sign for a covered bridge, so we took a lovely short side trip to this covered bridge.  I got to drive through it!  I noticed there was a rope swing hanging underneath it, but it wasn't warm enough to try it out.

 Cannon Beach is such a pretty mellow town. Lots of shopping, galleries, and of course that huge sandy beach.  We had a pretty view of the ocean out of our hotel window and we could just step outside and go for a wander.  Haystack Rock was a bit south of us, but not too far for a walk.  I spent a lot of my time walking back and forth barefoot over the smooth sand. 

 The weather was cloudy with sunbreaks and warm the whole time. No rain!

I think this was called Tillamook Rock Lighthouse

 I really wanted to see the tufted puffins that are supposed to nest on Haystack Rock. I looked through my zoom until my eyes watered, but only saw the penguin-like common murres, cormorants and gulls. Later when I zoomed in on my photos there were a couple puffins there!  I guess it's kind of cheating to check them off my list since I didn't know I was actually seeing them.  I'll have to go back with something more powerful.

Pair of tufted puffins barely discernable at center

Harlequin Ducks

 There were so many cool things to see on the beach... sand dollars, razor clam and mussel shells, the occasional pretty rock.

Empty Armor

 Another sight along all the tidelines, were these jelly fish.  They are called Velellas and they have a little sail that scoots them all around the ocean.  Sadly sometimes it scoots them up ashore, and they were there by the thousands!  Very pretty and interesting jellies though.

Velella Velella

So many marooned sailor velellas

 The people were interesting too and it was great to see so many of them enjoying such a variety of activities.  Next to sand castle construction, kite flying seemed to be the most popular.

 Here was a different take on sand castles!  I don't know who built it, but later I saw a little kid further down the beach painstakingly trying to construct a cliff dwelling of his own.

 After we left Cannon Beach we went south to check out the Tillamook Cheese Factory. We pulled over first for these pretty views of other rock stacks.

The Tillamook Cheese Factory was not exactly what I expected.  It's basically a huge gift shop/café with a few observation windows from which you can see the cutting and packaging.  It was pretty cool to see so much cheese!  Yum!  And there were samples at the end too.  No savings on cheese in their grocery section either.  I usually pay a couple dollars less by watching for sales at grocery stores.  It wasn't too far out of the way though, and if we had been hungry I've heard the café is excellent.

 To make our way north to Tacoma where we were going to an Iron Maiden concert on our last night, we took some back roads that my phone's map app showed.  What a worthy drive!  We saw tiny little communities up in the hills, gorgeous forests, winding rivers, and these elk that went up the hill when they saw us walking back for photos.  For big animals they moved so quietly- like big ghosts through the trees.  Don't worry- we weren't as close as these photos look and there was a small river in between us.

 There were also pretty wildflowers blooming- trillium and bleeding heart.  I was glad we stopped!

Northwest Trek 7-6-14

Pets aren't allowed at Northwest Trek, so Dave and I had to leave Adventure Dog home for this adventure.  It was a beautiful hot sunshiny day and neither of us had ever been to Northwest Trek.  Despite the heat of the day, the parking lots and walkways are well-designed under existing forest, so we didn't overheat and we didn't come back to a furnace either.  We just completely enjoyed the experience!
With your admission to Northwest Trek, you get a "tram" ride included.  This is a 3 sectioned bus that takes you on a guided tour of the large hooved mammal section of the park.  Our guide, Mike, was super informative and I learned a lot about antlers and horns, behaviors of the hooved mammals there and history of the area.  We saw bison, elk, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, deer and caribou.  This was a GREAT time of year to go, as most of these animals had babies at their sides (awwwww).  The hooved mammal we did not see was a moose.  Apparently the park has 3 of them, but they must have been forwarned how much I would love to see a moose and brought my camera, so they were all hiding.  Along the nearly hour long ride, we also saw Canada geese, a beaver and I glimpsed a weasel run across the road but missed the pair of trumpeter swans.  Here are some of the pictures of the deer, goats and sheep we saw.

Besides the tram ride animals, we spent a couple lovely hours meandering around viewing the various other northwest denizons' enclosures.  It did seem to get busier in the later afternoon, but this park was far far less crowded than the zoos usually are and I felt we were able to view the animals better as well. 
The other animals included black bear, brown bear, cougar (which we didn't see), lynx, coyotes, raccoons, fishers, beavers, otters, a wolverine, birds of prey, and wolves among others.  (sorry a couple of these are blurry)

 

 

 

 

This last picture is of a fisher who is being lured toward her 'holding area' with meat.  She was being lured there by the keepers who were then going to have to go in and retrieve someone's water bottle that was thrown or dropped in.  I was really impressed with all the staff I interacted with.   Even though there were several of them trying to solve the water bottle issue, they still took the time to explain the situation, answer people's questions and didn't mind that I was bobbing around in the way trying to get pictures and video.  There was another staff members feeding the beavers and she also answered my question about what they were being fed in a very friendly and thorough way. 

I was super excited to see a wolverine up close and completely charmed by this formidable animal.

I highly recommend Northwest Trek and will definitely go again!

Hoh River Trail 2-19-2012

Sunday morning found us gearing up for hiking in the Hoh Rainforest.  Surprisingly we didn’t get rained on there!  We stopped at the Big Sitka Spruce on the way.  It was huge and impressive.  We wanted to see the Big Cedar as well, but that was further south and after our hike we ran out of light and energy.

Outside the ranger station stood this old phone booth.  No longer holding a phone, it has found a job as a moss-holder.

The Hoh River Trail was beautiful, winding through mossy trees… huge ancient conifers, and lichen laden maples. 

Most parts of the trail were just damp, but there were a few muddy spots. 

The Hoh River was a pretty river, with a wide meandering valley of stones.  It was calmer than I thought it would be, but huge trees piled along it and laying across it attested to its strength when full.

Along the way were some pretty waterfalls.

This mossy tree was hugging another.  Dave decided it was a tree hugger.  : )

At about 4 miles in we came to the Cedar Grove.  It has had a couple recent casualties, and the one we found blocking our path was about 6 ft in diameter. 

We hiked in the full 5 miles which was our original plan, to Five Mile Island and enjoyed our lunch with a lovely view of the mist rising off the forest, the snowy trees of the surrounding hills, and this beautiful icy mountain.  I don’t know which mountain it is, so if you do please leave a comment with the answer!

Wildlife was abundant. Mostly we heard birds and squirrels, but at the end of our 10 mi journey, we found a deer along the trail, and as we drove out of Olympic National Park, we found a couple fields of elk.

What an awesome day!