The Road Less Traveled

Cannon Beach, for those who have not visited, is a lovely little town, full of galleries, restaurants, and amazing scenery in nearly every direction.  For photographers, it’s a veritable playground just asking you to get busy.    As I was in town for a few days, staying with friends, I did just that.  Here are a few of my snaps…

Likely the most photographed landscape in Cannon Beach - the iconic Haystack Rock.

Sacajawea statue facing the setting sun

This little sculpture commemorating Sacajawea was in a turn around at the center of what I assume are a bunch of vacation homes.  Each block was posted with No Parking signs – very unwelcoming, I thought.  Anyhow, I walked up here from my friends’ house (a lovely 3 bedroom home that they are trying to sell, by the way,  if you know anyone interested).   The sunsets were pretty amazing the few nights I was there.  Check them out – after the break… (more…)

There’s all kinds of travel and all kinds of places to travel to. For me, one of the more fun ways to travel is to just head down a side road and see where it takes me. I’m also really fond of places with cliffs and birds.

When I took off on a trip to Ireland last spring, what I was most looking forward to doing was finding cliffs to go hang out on and take photos. I stayed in B&Bs mostly, which were really more like B&B&Ls as they fed me so much I was able to pack a small lunch of toast and jam for myself to eat while sitting on the bluffs somewhere.

Anyhow, I’m working on a special project that I’m really excited about (beyond this blog, which I’m also very excited about.)

Here’s a sneak peek at a part of my project.

Stay tuned…

I’m not really a gardener, as any of my friends could tell you.  But I do love flowers.  Years ago, during my Park Ranger days, I would lead folks on guided walks looking at wildflowers in the the meadows of the sub-alpine (at Olympic National Park) and the tundra (at Denali National Park), which I loved.  But gardening – not my thing.  That was until recently when I went to the Dahlia Festival in Canby recently.  WOW!

I always thought of dahlias as looking like this:

My image of what a dahlia looks like

Something with firm flower heads made up of tight little coiled tunnels that catch the rain.   Beautiful, but I thought that was pretty much it, in a variety of colors.  Well, not being a gardener I was delighted to discover that they range from delicate and graceful to huge and gaudy, and everything in between.

Who knew a dahlia could look like this?

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There are some places you visit where you just feel good, like it’s a place to stay for a while, where things are right, somehow.  The little village of Kilbaha was one of those places for me.  Not only is it near Loop Head, which I had heard was a ‘must see’ if I wanted to enjoy amazing cliffs with birds and random beauty.

Crashing waves erode tunnels through the cliffs

It’s also got one of the most comfortable places to stay I’ve ever experienced.  This was more a feeling I got from the welcome by strangers than plush accommodation.  I stayed at the Lighthouse Inn, which  fit my image of a traditional Irish Inn, a pub downstairs with rooms upstairs, but they were friendlier than one could imagine.  (more…)