Another Saturday Drive

Saturday AM we were sitting here with our coffee, fire and internet when Rick suggested we go for a drive.  He's been eyeballing the southwestern tip of the state as a possible photography opportunity (hereafter known as "photo op").  It's the mouth of the Columbia River, the Pacific ocean, possible autumn colors and he found 2 lighthouses and a covered bridge out there!  Book!

So we headed out around 11, a little late for such a long drive, but it turned out OK.  We got down there and headed for the shore of the Columbia.  It was a beautiful sunny day but there was a haze over the river and it made shooting anything in the distance virtually impossible.  But it was a nice day for a drive nonetheless.

Eventually we hit a quaint, small, riverside town called Cathlamet (Cath•la•MAY or Cath•la•MET?).  As well-kept, quaint and waterfront a town as it was it was difficult to get any good photos, there was too much man-made stuff in the way of nature and too much natural stuff in the way of the man-made.  Comprende? And the haze was still ruining the distant views.

We meandered along the river then the highway took us inland and we were finally gonna get to see the covered bridge!  Woo-hoo!

Well, it was a covered bridge, but it looked more like a wooden storage container - not the picturesque covered bridge we'd imagined.
 
More hazy river.  Another town that just missed the target, Chinook.  There wasn't much in the way of fall colors either.  Hmm...

So we finally got to head for the lighthouse that I knew about, Cape Disappointment.  Uh oh, it's one of those parking areas that require a "Discovery Pass".  And the trail to the lighthouse looked, um, 1.5 miles?  Oh, no, there's another sign, it says it's only .5 miles.  OK, let's go buy that pass!

The British lady who helped us in the "Fort Canby" store did a good job of convincing us to go ahead and buy the annual pass for $30 instead of the one time only pass for $10.  Good thing, since the second lighthouse that we just found kinda accidentally also required that pass!

So we did our half mile hike and enjoyed finally having something worthy of shooting.  It was a neat old lighthouse, black and white striped.  On the way we passed "Dead Man's Cove".  When we were almost back to the parking lot we saw the sign pointing the way to the interpretive center (which requires a $5 admission fee but not when it's CLOSED!!) which we'd seen from the lighthouse so we headed out to it to get some more shots of the LH from a different point of view.  After that again we tried to head back to the car and I spotted this really cool, VERY rusted door and had to go investigate.  It turned out that the back half of the interpretive center was the historical site "Fort Canby" which was established back during the civil war!  It was a cool collection of tunnels, rooms, gunnery thingies and an ammo room with some artifacts still in it (disarmed, I'm sure), all concrete and unlocked, heck, they even left the lights on!  I'd seen pics of Fort Canby in the past and knew it was on my list of "must see" locations but knew not where it was.  And we stumbled onto it accidentally!

Daylight was burning and I wanted to be at the beach at sunset but we ran into that other lighthouse, North Head.  It was, I think, maybe even more interesting than the first one and the walk was much easier.  So we walked very quickly to the LH, got a bunch of shots of it and the woman that was sitting near it with her guitar and got back to the car with only minutes left before sunset.

We allowed the Garmin GPS that Rick got for free off Craigslist to lead us to the beach and as we drove onto the sand I could literally see the sun lowering into the water.  So I bullied Rick into just getting out there and stopping as I was opening the door while we were still moving.  But I got it - whew!  We sat and ate our last half of our Subway sandwiches for dinner and played with the seagulls.  A large crowd showed up ready for a night of clamming, they made nice silhouettes.  When we hit the road for home the orange glow was hard to ignore.  We were driving past some tide flats and had to keep stopping to get more shots.  Rick's came out way better than mine, go check his blog, he has his pictures posted there.

Overall I think Rick's whole day of pictures was better than mine.  But again it was fun to get out, see yet another part of the state that neither of us had ever seen before and continue to work on our photography skills.

Good thing too, Sunday it was back to typical Seattle weather, cold and rainy...

About Me

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After 2 unsuccessful marriages I spent 12 years as a divorcee, only to fall prey to another man's wiles. We had a fun 5 years together and then he decided he wanted more freedom so once again I'm single.

So I'm freshly divorced at 57 and have 5 great kids and now 7 grandkids. My kids are still a major part of my life but I'm busy helping my aging parents on Kauai.

I've lived in California, Hawaii and Oklahoma before finally settling here in Washington. I love Washington and come back to visit family, friends and take care of my garden often but will be temporarily a resident of Kauai.

I've moved 30 times in my life (no, my parents weren't in the service, at least not since I was about 2) and finally planted roots when I got my little house that I've owned since '91.

My family are Jehovah's Witnesses, I've been one since '72.