30 August 2006 by ben.

For the fourth time in the past six years, we rented a house in Manzanita, Oregon, for the week starting 19 August. Manzanita is a small coastal town, population about 600, nestled between Neahkahnie Mountain to the north and Nehalem Bay to the south. It’s main street has a quirky collection of shops and restaurants, a pizza place that used to be great but greatly disappointing this year, and two miles of soft sandy beach. A chain of modestly sized sand dunes separates most of the surf from the homes, except near downtown where the sea can nearly splash main street in a good storm.

We enjoy lazing around the quiet community, our dogs are welcome, and the beach is just a block away. Since the kids are older now, we organized a couple family hikes during the week, both on the Oregon Coastal Trail as it passes through Oswald State Park a few minutes north of Manzanita. The first hike was mostly flat over three miles to Cape Falcon where we picnicked high above a primitive Falcon Cove while perched on a blackberry vine-infested trail clinging to the bluff. Views into the small cove reminded me of something I might see a million years ago — the rocky and narrow cove opening could wreck even the most daring of boaters; and no trail could safely drop the 250′ to the beach. There’s a memorial on the far side of the cove (along the cape) further up the trail than we ventured this time, and I suspect it is from a shipwreck. On our return, we detoured onto Falcon Point where we could look south past Smuggler’s Cove and Neahkahnie Mountain to Manzanita and beyond.

And just as we began our three-mile return trek, a flock of pelicans flew around the cape to fish in Smuggler’s Cove:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Family, Adventures | Print | 3 Comments »

29 August 2006 by ben.

On Friday the 18th of August, we had a chance to visit and lunch with Robbie and Nathan on our way to our rental house in Manzanita, Oregon. We hadn’t been down to Montesano in ages, and as it turned out, it was the most memorable portion of our week of vacation. Their property looked terrific, flowers everywhere, a couple of giant wind chimes made from old fire extinguishers, lots of trees and green everywhere, birds chirping all around. Robbie had spruced up the old work shed with a bold and bright paint job. They’d taken out the wooden deck around the hot tub and poured a concrete deck with inlaid flat river rocks and added easy chairs, tables, an old TV for outdoor summer theater, plus a scattering of solar lamps that Nathan said bathed the deck in a moonglow at night.

We chatted up a storm outside trying to get caught up on recent happenings while the dogs, Pier and Rio, rested nearby.

Inside, Robbie and Nathan showed off their entries in the Grays Harbor County Fair earlier in the month. Robbie won a Blue Ribbon (and nearly Best-of-Show) with a fabulous quilt of race car teams and also a Blue Ribbon for a photo of a flower garden. . Nathan won a Blue Ribbon for his brilliant sunset photo of the Peter Iredale shipwreck off Fort Stevens near Astoria, Oregon.

Nathan showed us some of the finds they’d made geocaching and also the weatherproof cannisters he’d been making so that he and Robbie could create and stash their own geocaches — they’d hidden three in the Fort Stevens area already.  And while Scott, Kim and I looked over the geocaching finds, Robbie enthusiastically listened to a long series of knitting, school, and vacation stories as told by Sandy and Bonnie.
After Nathan BBQ’d some hamburgers patties, we fixed up our burgers and piled on Robbie’s terrific potato salad and bean dish and enjoyed a leisurely lunch out on the deck.

Posted in Family | Print | No Comments »

29 August 2006 by ben.

To kick off our final vacation of the year, we headed to Vantage on 18 August to visit with Chris and Susan and their kids & Venus, too. I was especially looking forward to the day since I hadn’t had a chance to spend much time with Chris in over a year, and he had the full day off. After some initial yakking, we had lunch and then got our stuff together to go play on the Columbia River, which would be refreshing considering the high temps. Chris launched their boat and then shuttled us in two groups to a sandy beach about 3 miles/5 km south on the river, on the far side. Just ashore, a huge, burning hot sand dune loomed large. While a few stayed ashore with Venus, others went out in the boat to try their luck and thrill at being towed on a sea-biscuit. I passed, but just about everybody else gave it a go. I think Nick was the champ, being towed for miles it seemed! I stayed ashore one time with Venus, who mostly just eyed me suspiciously, and climbed the dune which rose for about 100′ / 30m from the river’s edge to the basalt cliffs above.

On the return near suppertime, Chris let me run the first boat shuttle back to Vantage, which was fun. On the return, it was just me and the boat controls, something I’d never experienced before. Nothing unexpected happened, and I did find the right beach on the return where Chris and Wesley waited. Or maybe it was Chris and Nick. And Venus.

After securing the boat back on the trailer at the launch in Vantage, we began the several block drive back and watched this humorous spectacle unfold. Venus, partly pictured below, absolutely rocketed up the road trying to get home before we did. At one point, she ran parallel to our truck and raced through a gas station by a couple of guys pumping gas. As Venus streaked past, I saw them smiling incredulously as their heads whipped around to follow her progress. After taking a shortcut across some vacant lots, she easily won the hands down. Er… paws down.

Below, L to R: Nick, Caralyn, Jael, Sandy, Wes, and Bonnie. Venus pokes in from the left.

Posted in Family | Print | No Comments »

15 August 2006 by ben.

On 12 August, Bonnie and I headed to North Bend for a hike up Bare Mountain, but thanks to signs that said the back country was closed (only private land, as it turned out later), we skirted around the Mount Si Days Festival headed up to Snoqualmie Pass, got up-to-date information at the forest ranger outpost, and descended a couple miles back towards Seattle to the Annette Lake / Denny Creek trailhead. Kind of a late start, but we were glad just to get there after all that traffic in North Bend.

The early part of the trail passed through a very mature forest, so there was little undergrowth and few birds. The freeway was quite audible for a while, except near the beginning when the trail crossed the smallish but vigorous Denny Creek. The going was easy for a while as the trail gradually ascended up and over the Iron Horse Trail, a smooth gravel rails-to-trail conversion of the old Snoqualmie Pass line. We paused there for a couple photos before continuing and saw a few mountain bikes coasting around the curve through the thick evergreen forest.

The next couple of miles saw us climbing quite a bit, and at times there were some great views across the valley. Ultimately, we climbed from about 1900′ at the trailhead to a peak of 3600′, dropping just slightly in the last 1/2 mile to the the lake.

Bonnie cooled herself off at the lake, and as we settled in to our picnic, we were surrounded by dozens of small black flies. We retreated a bit into the forest where the flies were fewer in an area where people evidently camped quite often, still with a nice view of the lake over the underbrush and under the high branches of the cedars and Douglass firs.

Posted in Adventures | Print | 2 Comments »

15 August 2006 by ben.

My blog for posting contemporaneous musings and photos.

Posted in Notes | Print | No Comments »