Oregon and Bust
Naturally, I'm quite capable of writing a thousand words on the subject of my Oregon trip, but I've been told a picture will do the same work. So here are a few, with context.
When I arrived, Melinda met me at the airport, a lovely airport by the way, though we only had a couple hours before her own plane was to leave.
After lunch and getting Melinda back to the airport, Aunt Mary and I went along the Columbia Gorge looking at water falls. We found them. We saw them from the front:
From the rear:
And from above:
Then the next day, after a few rounds of darts with Uncle Bruce, Cherilyn picked me up, took me out for pizza, to an art gallery, and eventually to meet her new boyfriend, Todd, of whom I approve, despite his name's similarity to the German word for death. Here's out little Cherilynskiego all grown up:
Unfortunately, most of the pictures of her had horrible, nightmarish red-eye.
Then Sabbath after church we drove down the coast to Newport, stopping along the way. We got to see the replica of the fort Lewis and Clark spent a miserable winter in.
And got a hug from Sacagawea.
Then we went to the coast, where we saw whales, which you can't actually see in this picture, but believe me, they were there. I think they were Gray Whales.
And here's Aunt Mary whale watching.
The sunset was almost as lovely as on the prairie.
After the night in Newport, we went to the beach in the morning near low tide. The tide pools had beautiful creatures, mysterious monsters for those of us who spend out lives in the middle of the continent.
Starfish
Anenomes
Chitons
Crabs (living crabs not pictured)
Sea urchins
Harlequin Ducks
Oyster Catchers
Harbor Seals
Relatives
and me.
Later, we went to the bay at Newport where the Steller's Sea Lions were making a racket.
And some Common Loons were acting surprisingly friendly.
There were also some shorebirds I haven't identified yet flocked around a fishy-smelling place.
We had also stopped at a completely different sort of beach, one of those broad, sandy ones. We found a lot of broken shells, but no agates (it was called "Agate Beach"). We found the remains of Sand Dollars, but actually none of them where whole, so we called them Sand 50 cent peices. Such is life. Here's Aunt Mary collecting them.
That concludes the photo essay for now. Melinda gets back tonight, so we'll be seeing more of her soon.
Oh, and if anyone really, desperately needs larger versions of the pictures, they can e-mail me. Most of them are automatically resized by photobucket, my picture hosting service.
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