3-Day Weekend -- Part 1

Clay and I were both excited about the 3-day weekend. With summer coming to an end soon, we know we will not have as many opportunities to take these fun daytrips that we have enjoyed so much the past couple of months. We considered going camping, but thought the campgrounds would probably be full. To our surprise, we noticed that there seemed to be plenty of places available at many of the campsites we passed. Oh well!

On Saturday, we headed for Cape Perpetua, which is a little ways north of the Heceta Head Lighthouse we visited recently. For a variation in scenery, we took a different route over to the coast, and still another route coming home (the sign said "one lane road with turnouts" which worried me a bit, but it turned out fine!)

Clay was anxious to try out his new camera. It has a 12x optical zoom, and he's excited to see if he can capture some interesting wildlife on his trip to Montana next week. To experiment, he took a picture of the lighthouse from the viewpoint at the normal (wide angle) setting.....





And then this one is taken from the same spot using full zoom.




This is part of the coast near Cape Perpetua. The tidepools are very interesting to explore, but unfortunately we arrived at high tide, so they were covered up.



But high tide is a great time to see some impressive splashing as the waves hit the rocks.




Enjoying the beauty of nature? Pondering the grandeur of the scenery? Thinking deep thoughts about my place in the universe? Well, yeah, but mostly pausing to catch my breath as we're hiking, because I'm really out of shape!




This is the Spouting Horn, which sends a great "poof" of water out the top when a wave comes up through a hole underneath. It makes a nice booming sound too. It was one of our favorite spots. (High tide was a great time to catch this).

Some pretty wildflowers along the trail -- a little flattened by the wind.

We had fun climbing out on the rocks. There were lots of signs posted warning people to never turn their back on the ocean, proceed with caution, enter at your own risk, etc.

We are now looking down from the top of the mountain (hill? whatever) at the places we had been hiking earlier. There's a trail that you can hike up to the top. Clay was ready to hike up it, but I voted for the alternate route driving up the road. You can see the zig-zagging path and the rocks we were on down in the bottom right of this picture.

This cute little rock shelter on the side of the cliff was very popular that day, especially with young couples. We only had a few minutes to ourselves, and then moved on so others could enjoy it. It had a great view.

Here is an explanation of why it's there. (You can click on the picture to enlarge it so you can read it).

Here is a view out one of its "windows."

A little ways past the rock shelter there was a break in the trees along the trail, and we could see the town of Yachats. Here is a picture I took with my camera.

And here is what Clay can get with his super zoom. He's having a lot of fun experimenting with it.

We spent a little while hanging out at a park near Yachats before heading home. Here Clay is trying out the lounge chair and pad that we found for a great clearance price at the Florence Fred Meyer when we stopped that morning to pick up some supplies for our trip.

The sound of the ocean is very relaxing!