Beach Befogged

Here are some more pics from our beach trip yesterday. This one was of Captain Fishhead a 2nd hand store located practically under the Astoria bridge. We drove past it several times because the bridge was temporarily closed for a wide load vehicle and we were going to get lunch while we waited but my sister couldn't find the fish and chips place she remembered.

We wanted to cross the Columbia River on the Astoria bridge to go to Long Beach in Washington as it is possible to drive right down onto the beach there and that is so much easier for Mom.

We had crossed the Rainier Bridge from Longview WA to Rainier OR and then traveled the Oregon side of the Columbia as that is a much less winding road and shorter.




I kept trying to get a picture of Captain Fishhead's 'book store' and kept missing my chance until the last time we went by. I was all excited because I saw the word 'books' on the sign. It wasn't until I got home and got the pics off the camera and into my photo manager and enlarged until I could read the sign that I realized it wasn't simply a book store. I'm still having trouble letting go of the fantasy of the book store in a house on the river near the beach.



If I had been traveling on my own or with someone of like mind this is the type of place I would love to stop and explore. Even though it's not primarily a book store. I like places with personality like this.



This was a piece of driftwood near the driveway into the restroom on Long Beach. Do you see something in it that doesn't look like it belongs to any tree alive or dead?



This little wave or the one just before it reached my feet and went over my toes. I thought I was safe since I was six inches from the edge of foam from the wavelet that reached the furthest in several minutes of watching.

You can see how foggy it was at Long Beach. You can't see how windy or how cold. I was the only one of the four of us ladies to brave it. But I'm weird that way. I love all of the moods of a beach.

Well, except tidal waves.



This seagull seemed to be flying straight at me.




That little white gull on the left was one-legged. She let me get really close before she took to the sky. I took several shots but most of them did not catch the bird as the camera was tilted to far up. I got about five shots of nothing but foggy sky.


We returned to the Oregon side on the Astoria bridge heading for a beach someone at the fish and chips place had told my sister also allowed cars right down on the beach. It was called Sunset Beach. I'll try to put a few of the pics from there tomorrow.

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Beach Bewitched

We did go to the beach today. Actually two of them as Long Beach in
Washington was socked in by fog and a brisk, cold breeze. I was the only one to get out of the car there to go stand at the edge of the surf and take pictures. The pic heading this post was taken at Sunset Beach on the Oregon side, near Warrington and Astoria.

My sister drove Mom, me, Jamie and our niece. Got back to Longview around sundown 8:30ish.

It was glorious. I took 346 pictures, wearing out two sets of batteries. But over 50% of them are 90% to 100% sky and sun glare. I can't see the LED screen on my digital camera when outdoors so I can't frame a picture before taking it. I just aim with my best guess and hope something I was aiming at gets in the shot so I can later crop to get the frame right.

I spent an hour cropping this photo of the gulls flying down the beach toward me. I can't do another one tonight without risking a face plant on the keyboard.

Nor do I expect to have much time to fuss with the photos before I get back home next week so what I'm planning is to feature them in my Sunday Serenity posts over the next several weeks.

I'm loving the seagulls picture right now. Can imagine it as a huge wall poster or painting. Maybe even the masthead on the template change I've been planning for months. I have my 3 column template selected and downloaded and only needed to find or create a 970 pixel wide photo for the masthead. Had been thinking something with a books and writing theme but this could work maybe. If only as a place holder until I can make the other one I've been envisioning. Beach scenes represent joy to me, even me, Joy. The gulls and other birds skimming the surf seemed joyful to me.

Well, I've gotta surrender to sleep now. Hoping for beach bewitched dreams.

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Sunday Serenity #187

I thought I was going to be seeing scenes like those above and below today.



Instead I saw a lot of scenes similar to this one:



Ed and I rendezvoused with my sister at Rice Hill this afternoon which is close to the halfway point between Phoenix and Portland. I'm to be spending the next month or so at my mom's in Longview WA and the plan was for us to head east to the coast and drive up the Oregon coast on Highway 101 maybe stop at a beach and walk in the surf.

It was a beautiful day for it too and we three sisters (Carri had stopped in Vancouver WA on her way south to pick up Jamie) were eagerly looking forward to seeing the beaches and hearing the surf. We all love beaches.

So we took Highway 20 just north of Eugene heading toward Newport. It was during the hour or so on that road that we saw many scenes similar to the bucolic barn scene above.

We were just ten miles from Newport when traffic suddenly began crawling and then halted altogether. We smelled smoke. Then traffic began flowing back towards us from ahead. It was cars that had turned around and headed east again. One of them stopped to inform us that a hay truck had caught fire ahead and the road had been closed.

So we had to turn around as well. By then it was after 5PM so we realized that it would be too late to make the six hour drive up the coast by the time we had made the hour or so drive back to I5 and found another Highway east. So disappointing.

But a really bizarre thing happened on our drive back to the freeway. We stopped at a rest area and while there my sister spotted an older couple exiting their car and was struck by how much the gentleman resembled our uncles--our mother's brothers and their father, our grandpa.

Now my sister, unlike me, is far far far from shy. She had no qualms about calling out to him and saying 'you look like you could be in our family.' In the course of the next few minutes she had elicited from him that his father had been from Indiana. Our mother's father had been raised in Elkhart Indiana. So she asked his name and learned it was Myers. Which is our mother's maiden name. And spelled the way her's was spelled which is the uncommon way to spell it as it is more often spelled Meyers. And the gentleman's first name was the same as one of our Myers cousin's. And someone else in his family (possibly his father, grandfather or uncle) was named Warren which is Mom's brother's name.

Now we know that Mom's dad, Howard Myers was the son of Amos Myers of Elkhart and Amos had six brothers.


Above was my attempt to photograph my mom's photographic print of the huge photo wall portrait of her Grandpa Amos and his brothers taken in the late 1800s. I don't know which one is Amos. Nor do I know any of his brother's names. But I think I would be willing to lay a bet that one of the young men pictured above is the great or great-great grandfather of Mr Myers whom we met on Oregon Highway 20 this afternoon. If so it might be possible his direct ancestor was my own grandfather's brother but since Mr Myers had not heard of an Amos in his direct line, it would be more likely it was one of Amos's brothers or even one of Amos's father's brothers.

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Sunday Serenity #165

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