May 11. Snake River. Portland. Dogwoods full bloom, like pink candy. We lucked into a room at a fabulous B & B, called The Lion and the Rose. Dinner at the Rustica, good neighborhood Italian. Postprandial walk through the Irvington Neighborhood.
May 12. Bought picnic supplies at Don Krueger's (upscale place). Then to The Japanese Garden, where our day became a Zen garden of raked sand. Frigid lunch by the Columbia, in the park at Rainier. Huge container vessel steamed past our gazebo, and Walter found a lode of black sand. Astoria (just had to cross the river and back). Landed in a seaside unit at the Edgewater Inn in Seaside, where Walter did his first seascapes. Here is one of them:
May 13. We met salmonberry walking to Short Sands Beach, and spent a long time watching a nest-building wren with a beautiful song. We were introduced to salal, and to some of the lovely forest foliage, and to some gigantic ancient sitka spruce. Continuing south past Tillamook, lunch at Wee Willie's near Cape Meares, where we met marionberry pie. A stop at Fogarty Creek, which meets the ocean at a beach of fabulous multicolor coarse sand. On to Oregon House, which was to be our home for the next week. Another beach walk, followed by a salad of the famous locally caught small bay shrimp.
May 14. Some rain. Painting, reading, sitting, beachwalk with fabulous braided sands. Anemone. Dinner of Tillamook cheese. Here is the more or less sunny afternoon:
May 15. Sudden morning rainbow. Geese in a V. Down to Florence. Lunch at the fabled Mo's Seafood. The saturday of the Rhododendron Festival is traditionally Biker Day in Florence. Sunny afternoon walk down the Siltcoos River to the sea. Marshes, one beaver, one pelican, many snowy plovers, and on the beach a group of 25 seals or sea lions. More baby shrimp to eat.
May 16. Mostly rainy. A long walk up a ridge, past acres of the vertical grayness of the sitka spruce. Magical woods. Thimbleberry. Wrote postcards. In to Yachats to have a latte and a chai at Toad Hall. Then we dug into a crab.
May 17. Mostly rainy. Made one try at a trip to Newport; got as far as Yachats and turned around. Also abandoned a trip to the lighthouse, on account of cold wind. In the early evening, rain let up, and we had a beautiful walk on the beach from Oregon house. Tonight we feasted on scallops and clams. Here is what a rainy day looks like over the Pacific:
May 18. Rainy AM, but we did the Newport trip anyway, and got lucky with a sunny afternoon. The main attraction was the Oregon Coast Aquarium, where we saw many of the usual creatures, plus sea otters, and some sea birds that are hard to observe in the wild, such as the tufted puffin. Dinner of chinook salmon.
May 19. A large ship going north. A wonderful singing bird. A sunny morning walk to and near the lighthouse at Hectea Head, a few miles south of Oregon House. Seabirds seen from afar. Huge specimen of yellow skunk cabbage (arum family). Afternoon walk along the Hobbit Trail, through an enchanted forest, to yet another wonderful beach. This beach had orange sand and crows. Dined on smoked tuna.
May 20. Farewell walk along the Oregon House beach. Low tide with many wonderful starfish. Checked out, and at Florence headed away from the coast toward Eugene. Wonderful Siuslaw River. Fields of blue iris. At Hinman Vineyards, picnic lunch with a flock of goldfinches. Wonderful Manantiam River. Chaotic visit to Salem - saw state capitol six times - followed by a retreat to the gentler clime of nearby Silverton. Modest B&B called the Magnolia Cottage, very nice. We somehow ran out of time for seeing the fantastic Silver Falls nearby.
May 21. Toured the grounds of the future 350-acre Oregon Gardens. Drove to the Mt Angel Abbey, and on to the airport. 858 miles driven. On takeoff, cool views of all the rivers and Sauvie Island, then very clear views of Mt Hood and Mt Rainier to the north. Horsetooth Reservoir. Then to Boulder.
We didn't take a camera. Browse, if you like, these very nice photos by Bernd Mohr. If we were taking photos, and if we were good photographers like him, we might have had something like this.