Days 10-13 - One Day a Desert Rat, the next Day a Beach Bum

Miles Driven - None in RV  some in Jeep
Total Miles - 975
Still on Oregon Coast - heh, heh

One day we are in the last day of 8 months in dry desert, the next day we are on the beach,  Well, to be precise, 2 days later, but, when you are on the beach, hey, you lose track so easily. Know what I mean?

One day Painted Hills In John Day Fossil Beds, Oregon

Next Day Manzanita Beach in Oregon

Well, er, uh, ok, no excuses, like being a beach bum.  Perhaps that is why I haven't written in several days.  Sometimes you just need to take a little break which we have here at Nehalem Bay State park on the Oregon Coast.

We actually did something the other day.  We walked the 2 miles to downtown Manzanita and went geocaching.  Remember, I found my very first geocache last week at the Gordon House in Silverton when I wasn't even looking.  So I downloaded the app and, and opened it up to see if anything nearby.

Second GeoCache

Yep, there was one.  A little hunting, we discovered it behind some bushes in front of a home on main street.  Tee-hee.

One thing about the Oregon coast is how favorable the climate is for plants and flowers.  We admire some of the local gardens as we walked around town.

Admiring local garden

 Back home at the "Rancho del Williams", (aka CharLi, aka the RV), We cooked up some grub from local seafood shop.

I love "See Food"  when I see it, I eat it!

Only minutes from the beach I monitored the sunset possibilities, and dashed out to find a good place to watch.  Much of this time of the year is clouded in with fog banks so you have to shoot these when you can. 

El Rancho del Williams

I found a nice little dune which gave off some reflection of suns rays and spent a good 45 minutes watching the sunset and taking photos.  I ruined the shots from regular camera but managed to get a couple with the iPhone.  Never leave home without it.

Today we drove to Cannon Beach about 20 miles north.  We ate some lunch at local places, I had pizza and she had fish & chips.

Puffins!!

 We walked out onto the beach near Haystack Rock in hopes of seeing some Puffins.  It is breeding time for many birds.  Unfortunately the tide was in so we couldn't get too close.  I got no useable photos except from iPhone (see droopy camera there).  Through Sraddha's scope, we could see some puffins and Murres, and Pelagic Comorants on the rock.

BIRD!!!

We headed back south along highway 101. Interesting to note the cloud bank seems to hang permanently over Cannon Beach this time of year, while Manzanita and Nehalem Bay is usually sunny. (Editors note that tonight the clouds moved back in so no sunset.)

looking south towards Manzanita Beach.  Note fog bank further south 

This few days of R&R have been fun.  We spent the mornings walking and also researching and making some reservations for next winters trip to Florida.  Have some fun places booked. It gets crowded down there so wanted to make sure we have some places to stay during peak season.  Mid December through March 2 is now booked.  The rest, we will wing it.

 If you have read this far, I will let you in on a big secret......Promise not to tell anyone? We get to spend my 65th birthday next January in......

.......

wait for it.......

The Florida Keys!!  Woo Hoo

Off to Ananda Laurelwood for a few weeks.  So I won't post daily but hope to put up some photos and some fun things.

Day 6 - Change in Plans, Trip through Mountains

Miles Traveled - 108
Total Miles - 552
Departed - Narrows at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge
Arrived - Clyde Holliday State Park, east of John Day, Oregon

Due to a really good deal we actually had save $20 by booking the Narrows RV park for 4 nights. We spent another fun morning birding at Park HQ with Turtle and Hawk at Headquarters we saw numerous small birds and a few in flight.  We had met Bob and Bettina down in Patagonia Lake last winter.  Good birders!

3 great birders and one clueless shooter

We returned to the RV late morning for a nice salad brunch (not normal eating around here, let me tell you). As we were finishing up, I asked the question:

Me - So what do you want to do for the rest of the day.

Her - Oh, I am trying to figure out what birding to do..Do I want to go look for those burrowing owls?

Me - I have an idea. (uh oh)  It's still early in the day and the day is long.  Let's head out of here up north, refuel in Burns and check out that pesky Jeep tire with slow leak, then see if we want to spend the night at Idlywild campground up in the mountain forest?  If not then keep going.  Whaddya think?

Her - Hmm.  Yeah, I am ready to move on.

And just like that we began to pack up.  I still had the blog post to finish with XXX rated bird photos

so she began packing up.  When I finished, we then completed the packing (about 20 minutes), dumped waste, hooked up and off we go.

We stopped at Idlewild campground about 17 miles north of Burns around 2:30.  Nice forest service campground with 3 pull throughs in which we would have fit.  We walked around for about an hour looking for the Black Backed Wooedpecker whom our friends, Turtle and Hawk, had seen last week. Would have been a new bird sighting for Sraddha, however we just weren't' feeling it.

This is the great thing about not having a fixed schedule we really like.  We looked at each other and agreed that is was, again, time to move on.  I love flexibility and spontaneity.  Very different from even 6 months ago.

Long story short, we drove another 70 miles to John Day, then west 8 miles to Clyde Holliday State Park.  Now this park is on the John Day river and absolutely beautiful.  Yet right near highway.  AND they don't take reservations.  We gambled that, since it was the end of Memorial Day weekend, there might just be a couple sites open, which there were.  Not the prime sites, but we managed to select a decent site, unhooked, drove down the reverse direction so we could back in easily and settled in for the night.

Instead of departing Malheur Refuge with 140 miles to drive to the John Day Fossil Beds, we are not less than 30 miles to go this morning.  Good decision.

our campsite at Clyde Holliday State Park