Another rainy day!


I know it's been a few weeks since I posted, but sometimes life gets in the way and what should have been a couple of days turns into a couple of weeks, and before you know it you're lost. Such was the month of July, with a trip to Moab Utah, a trip to Oregon for a stay on the beach, and a family wedding, then home to a family reunion.

Of course it rained, nothing new, it rains every time my wife and I take a trip to the coast, a few years ago we took a trip to Washington state, right in the middle of a long drought, yep it rained every day we were there, Your welcome Washington, not complaining, some of the best things I've seen and was able to photograph were because of rain storms.

When we drove into Portland it was a nice sunny day, beautiful weather the entire drive from Utah, I was thinking what a great trip, there will be a few fluffy white clouds over the great Pacific ocean, the sun will set with it's golden/red colors, the great sea stacks that rise up from the ocean floor will be lit by the setting sun, there will be a light breeze blowing to draw the clouds out making them streak across the evening sky, it will be glorious!!

We checked into the small home we had rented in Seaside Oregon, unpacked and settled in, I was giddy to say the least for morning and a chance to start exploring, looking for places to photograph when the light was best, and of course my wife could look for places to shop.

Morning came and so did the rains, it rained all day long, the wind blew, hard, the sky was bleak and gray, but my wife being the shopper she is we headed south, the storm wouldn't close the doors of the shops in Depoe Bay after all.

When we got to Depoe Bay my wife set out on her shopping excursion, myself not being much for shopping decided to take a walk to the Whale watching center to get out of the rain, and just look out over the dark gray ocean, to my surprise the whales were in, blowing their spouts, and showing their flukes, much more than I had hoped to see on such a bleak day. 

We traveled to Tillamook, and checked out the cheese factory, a must see if you're in the area, but be prepared to wait in like if you want to sample the cheese, try the ice cream, or get a meal, we weren't prepared, I love Tillamook Cheese, but I don't love it that much, we did however take the free, unguided tour to see how the cheese was made, that was interesting. While in Tillamook we did stop at the smoker place and picked up some of their pepperoni, and jerky, I like that almost as much as I do the cheese, but the line was short so we were able to pick up some treats!

On our way home we stopped at Canon Beach for dinner at Moe's, my wife loves Moe's, we sat down ordered our meal, and the sky began to clear, just a little, just enough to give a little hope, after eating I excused myself to go to the car and get my gear, leaving my wife to take care of the bill.

I grabbed the camera and the tripod, have I ever mentioned that you should ALWAYS use a tripod if possible, well you should!! I headed out to the beach and just for a brief moment the sun peaked through highlighting the clouds with warm golden light, and  showing just a hint of blue sky but leaving Haystack rock dark and imposing, I was able to get that one photograph of Haystack Rock as the tide moved in and the clouds returned bringing the rain with them.

The next morning showed promise, the clouds where starting to break up and let the sky peek through, we gathered up what we needed and headed north to Astoria, I had hopes of photographing the beautiful little homes in their varied colors as they climbed the hillside that the city is built on, I wanted to take the photos from across the river on the Washington side to show off the Astoria-Megler bridge, I think that bridge is a wonder in engineering, we crossed the bridge and the causeway to Washington, I set up in a place I had seen a couple of days  before in an exploration drive, just as I set up the clouds moved in, the sky got dark, and the water turned that cold gray that water gets when the sky is gloomy, I took a couple of photographs, nothing to write home about, and we headed back to Astoria to explore, didn't know it at the time but Astoria loves one way streets, I learned from sad experience some time ago in Canada that one way streets can get you lost, we looked at a couple of old buildings, hotels mostly that are fantastic buildings to see then headed back to Seaside.


The next day, our last day on the coast proved the be that beautiful day with the wind lightly blowing, stretching the clouds across the blue sky, with the sun setting in the west, causing the light to highlight the sea stacks as they rise from the ocean floor.

I had looked at these stacks on our rainy trip south, and thought of how cool they looked standing just off shore in the Tillamook bay, on the far left is "Crab rock", I have no idea why they call it that, or why they call the other three larger stacks "The Three Graces" but that is what they are called.

The sun lined up perfect to take advantage of the stacks, showing off the cormorants that had taken rest on the one old dead tree growing out of one of the Three Graces, and the seagulls resting on the rocks. This one location, at this time of the day was what I was looking for, and I was fortunate to be there.

Comments

  1. Loved reading your whole excursion, T.L! You did get that one great shot & the top of the page shot ain’t bad either! 😊 You seem to have the usual luck I have trying to capture autumn colors, though I’ve been fortunate a “few” times over many years :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Adan!! Sorry it has taken me so long to reply to this. I have been working on a couple of novellas and haven't had the time.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sunset at Fort Casey

The Face of Tatanka

Kiva Ruins - Cold Spring Cave