The view from my windows is ever changing with the season and is often very beautiful. Here’s what it looked like a little while before all the leaves fell off and after an early dash of snow.
Isn’t my little part of the world a beautiful place. 8 =)
Enjoy,
After a lovely night’s rest and breakfast at our BnB in Brookings, we headed down to the Harris Beach State Park there and spent some time just walking around. Here’s a few photos from the park.
After getting our fill of the the wonderful ocean scenery and basically having the park to ourselves, we headed back out on the highway to our next stop, Pistol River State Scenic Viewpoint. From the map, it looked like it might be an interesting spot and lo and behold, when we got to it we were pleasantly surprised to see that it had dunes. Now this might not seem like a big deal to a lot of people but J had never seen dunes before and she was ecstatic!! She’d always wanted to see dunes but somehow, had never had the good fortune to run across any on the beaches she had been to. So, of course, we wandered in amongst the dunes for a while and spent some time on the beach just enjoying watching waves.
Again, we were the only ones there! I guess there’s some benefits, especially to a landscape photographer like I am, to go off season in crappy weather. No one around to get in the way of the scenery except my favourite model 🙂
Back in the car and up the road a piece to another pullout where I took this pic looking North.
Our next was for lunch at the Redfish in Port Orford.
Lovely lunch with some great views there too.
Having achieved a pleasant state of satiety, we meandered back to the car and headed on up the road again to what was our penultimate stop along the way, Cape Blanco State Park. Cape Blanco is the Westernmost point in Oregon and the contingual United States, and contains the Southernmost Lighthouse in Oregon. All fine reasons to stop there! What they don’t tell you about is the strength of the wind there! WhoooBoy….! J was afeared to leave the car. I got out and took a bunch of photos; hey that’s what I do, and I jumped straight up to land about foot back of where I launched myself from. There was a guy in a convertible with the top down and all the windows up just enjoying the views and eating a sandwich. Said he often comes to enjoy the scenery and wind.
From here we headed up to Bandon where we stopped at the renowned Face Rock Creamery to pick up some cheese and have a heavenly ice cream 🙂 We never actually visited the Face Rock but there’s lots of pics on the web of it.
From here, it was head up to Reedsport to pick up Rt 38 back to I-5. Rt 38 turned out to be a lovely road along the river and through the hills. Did I mention that we saw sheep in Oregon. And Elk. Lots of both!
Once we got to I-5, we headed up to Portland to stay with a friend of J’s that’s she’s known forever. Had a pizza dinner, conversation, crashed and were on the road again the next morning. Our last stop was a food court in the Alderwood Mall because I decided to get the pack after all!
And then back home. Boy, were we glad to be back home in our own bed that night. We had a great trip and loved all the crazy ups and downs and beautiful places and trees we saw but there’s nothing like coming home after a trip to your own bed! And on that note, I’ll say amen and leave you all in peace until I decide to write about something else.
Rich
Here in the Vancouver, BC area, Grouse Mountain is well known. There is a gondola that will take you up to the Chalet and recreation and skiing area or you can get there using your own 2 feet and save big bucks!! There are a number of trails that go up to the Chalet but the 2 most famous are “The Grouse Grind” and “The BCMC”.
Both trails have you hike up 850 metres from the parking lot to get to the Chalet. The Grind is a bit steeper and a few hundred metres shorter as a result and is the one most people use but I prefer the BCMC. Less people and just a bit less steep and it gets you to the same place. Plus in winter, The Grind has some serious avalanche and steep sections that if you lose your footing, you’re going to slide down a looooonnnng way. No such places on the BCMC.
Although the trails are “officially closed” during the winter months, that never stops the hundreds of “regulars” like myself .
Since I do this on a regular basis – several times a month – I buy a yearly gondola membership pass so that I can just get on the gondola for the ride down. Saves the stress on the knees and joints that pounding downhill can aggravate. And I really love the trail in the winter. No rocks or roots to navigate, just the compacted trail and the beautiful forest and trees covered in snow.
Generally takes me about 90 minutes in the winter with snow on the trail and 75-80 minutes in the summer. Keeners do it under an hour!! It’s a great workout, both for strength and cardio, and keeps me in shape for hiking other peaks when the opportunity arises.
Here’s a couple of pics from the Gondola ride down last week.
This is the view towards another pair of famous peaks, The Lions, that overlook Vancouver.
And here’s an abstract of a shot I snapped of just the trees.
Always good to get out especially when the sun is shining 🙂
Bioblogging with Rich 