19 February: reading 500 Mile Walkies

Allan took a quick look at some beauties of Cape Disappointment while delivering books to the Lewis and Clark gift shop there.

Cape Disappointment lighthouse

alders with lichen

Meanwhile, I was reading a book I had learned about from Raynor Winn’s memoir, The Salt Path.

This is a glorious tale of a different sort of walk around the coast of Devon and Cornwall from the one decades later in The Salt Path. Mark Wallington camped in some rough weather but stayed in inexpensive B&Bs when the wind and rain were too dire and had the money to have a Cornish pasty in a pub or teatime in a cafe.

His tale is mostly hilarious with some poignant, heartfelt moments. From a night at a B&B, he learned of a lifeboat disaster that reminded me of tragic tales around Cape Disappointment, near me, where the Columbia River bar is known as the Graveyard of the Pacific.:

His walk must have taken him along the cliff in front of Dorminack Cottage, home of Derek and Jeannie Tangye of the 19 volume memoir series, The Minack Chronicles, which was just about to consume my life for almost a month and put a stopper in any desire to blog instead of read. (That’s where I’ve been, in my imagination.) Derek Tangye wrote of the same tragedy when it happened and several times afterward.

From 500 Mile Walkies, some scenes very near to Dorminack:

Below, I always love to read stories about what the locals think of tourists. I was a tourist in this same part of Cornwall in 1975. Now that I’ve been a local in seaside towns for a quarter of a century, I think I would be uncomfortable returning to the tourist role.

500 Mile Walkies is now one of my favourite books of all time, and up in the top ten of the funniest, and I intend to read all of Wallington’s books. I think it’s been out of print. I hope it being mentioned in The Salt Path will give it a huge boost. Two of the sequels feature Boogie, an adorable scamp of a dog (who in real life is bigger than I imagined from Mark’s description; I googled up some photos of the two of them).

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12 Dec: stormwatching indoors and out

Saturday, 12 December 2015

my day

Kabob Cottage

Our Kathleen and I had an afternoon out, beginning with lunch at the Kabob Cottage.  The wind was almost of blow-you-over intensity so I did not get an exterior photo.

photo from 11-2-15.  The Kabob House is now called the Kabob Cottage

Chef Behnoosh’s Christmas tree

This was Kathleen’s first meal here. She was impressed.

Boreas Inn

Kathleen and I then attended the holiday open house at the Boreas Inn.  By attended, I mean we sat by one of the cozy fireplaces, ate some cookies, drank some hot cider, and relaxed.

Boreas Inn, with the private innkeeper’s house to the left

Susie’s windowbox

on the porch

tulip lights

from the foyer

B&B owners Susie and Bill in the kitchen, with hot spiced cider

I did go from window to window to look out upon the gardens we used to care for.  This is one of the jobs I passed on to Dave and Melissa of Sea Star Gardening, and Susie praised them highly today for hard work, garden knowledge, honesty, and said they just give her a “good feeling” with their work.  (Dave and Mel couldn’t make it to the open house because this weekend they were committed to working on that Oysterville garden that I like so much.)

The Garden Suite at the Boreas Inn

looking out the window of the Garden Suite

The Garden Suite

The Dunes Suite

the west living room

a Christmas village

looking west

gardens and hot tub hut

looking back

Kathleen had tucked herself in by the center fireplace in the room without a view, probably because it felt cozier than the west room with the big windows.

Bill and Kathleen

delectable mini-cupcakes

view from the couch

Susie’s photo: “Our tree at Boreas has quirky decorations that mean something special to us.”

I was especially taken with some tiny teacup ornaments and should have photographed them for myself.

The B&B bustled with many guests.  Because of the storm, Susie had expected few and had thought she and Bill would spending the afternoon reading by the fire, so to have so many guests arrive was a welcome surprise.

The entry price to the event was a can of food for the food bank; by the time we left, the receptacle was overflowing.

If your dream happens to be owning a B&B at the beach with a big separate house of your own quarters, you might be interested to know that the Boreas Inn is for sale.

Ilwaco

Kathleen expressed a desire to do a bit of Christmas shopping at the Don Nisbett Art Gallery.

on the way past the boatyard garden

 This necessitated a stop at the Saturday Christmas Market during its last five minutes of the day…

…to get a treat from Pink Poppy Bakery.

walking by Salt Hotel

Salt’s south-facing doors

Kathleen at the Nisbett Gallery

in Don’s gallery

just outside, a Christmas boat

At home, I reviewed yesterday’s gardening accomplishments that had been finished as darkness fell:

mulching the center bed

extending a shade bed by the wood pile (that is presently ending in a big puddle)

twigs blown all the way up to the patio

dramatic sky over the back garden

some last minute evening decorating occurred

yesterday’s mulching

sunset over Lake Street

Back at the Boreas Inn, Susie took this sunset photo:

photo by Susie Goldsmith, looking west from Boreas Inn

meanwhile….

Allan’s day

Allan was out and about taking photos of the high tide and the results of our recent storms.  You may recall that the Coast Guard closed all ocean entrances yesterday.  From the amount of debris at the Port of Ilwaco, you can see why.  So much flooding has taken place upstream that the Columbia River itself, we hear, has turned brown with sediment and is awash with debris.

storm warning flags at the port office

debris by the boatyard

storm debris

You can see from this satellite view how we relate to the mighty Columbia River, explaining why so much debris has washed into our little bay:

Even so, it is surprising considering the narrow entryway:

Allan walked out onto the docks this afternoon to get some more photos as boats continue to prepare for the delayed crab season.  The delay must be so frustrating for the crabbers as this season is a huge source of income for them.

ready and waiting

on the docks

high tide

Allan decided to drive to the beach, and on the way he passed our old house and stopped to get me a photo of the garden shed.

I was touched that the new owner has kept the purple colour; it has clearly been freshly painted.

I thought, Oh, Jon painted over the quotation that I had on the front of the shed.  The next photo revealed that he had carefully saved that part of the building, during a repair, and moved it to the side of the shed.  I felt deeply moved that he liked it enough to save it.

street side of the purple shed, back when it was mine

“This used to be among my prayers, a piece of land not so very large, which would contain a garden, and near the house a spring of ever flowing water, and beyond these a bit of woods.”  -Homer

Oh dearie me, I was hit with a great wave of missing the ever-flowing spring of water that fed a little pond on that piece of property.

Allan peeked at the old place from the street….

Our old fence is still there.

Ok, as I write this…getting a grip on my emotions.. and returning to Allan’s day, as he next went to Waikiki Beach at Cape Disappointment.

The drama of the waves was nothing like yesterday.

Today, the scene was comparatively sedate:

A park ranger told Allan that during the height of the storm surge, rangers had to move photographers away from the viewpoint because logs were rolling in fast and dangerous.

storm tossed logs

debris tossed way past the beach up onto the lawn

storm watchers

a bird who is clearly used to having its picture taken

While grocery shopping at the end of his excursion, Allan saw a beautiful sunset in Seaview.

sunset from Seaview from Sid’s Supermarket

On the way home, he stopped at Ocean Beach Hospital to look at this year’s wreath auction.

This year’s display includes gingerbread houses.

a clever idea

on the way home, on Lake Street

Tomorrow, we have an author’s reading to attend at Time Enough Books; perhaps we can also mulch at the library? And perhaps, just perhaps, a few days of reading can commence on Monday before the next round of holiday treats.

 

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13 Nov: memory

Thursday, 13 November 2014

Three Junes

We did not have any of the half inch of rain that had been predicted.  More high wind and freezing temperature made it a day off.  At last I had a bad weather day with few plans and no bulb sorting, thus with time to finish Three Junes.

I did not save many quotations from the book because the whole thing is such perfection that it would be hard to choose.  My favourite setting is the bookstore belonging to my favourite character, Fenno, a shop devoted especially to bird books.  Descriptions of the shop:

a bookstore named Plume

Tony, one of the characters in the second two parts of the book, housesits around the world.  I liked the description of a garden at one of his residences:

Because my new mission is to pick up litter around town, I was pleased by this reference to the amazing Bette Midler’s effort in the same direction:

Now, that makes me digress onto one of my favourite quotations about death:

“In one sense there is no death.  The life of a soul on earth lasts beyond his or her departure.  You will always feel that life touching yours, that voice speaking to you, The spirit looking out of others’ eyes, talking to you in the familiar things he touched, worked with, loved as a familiar friend.  He lives on in your life and in the lives of all others that knew him.” *Angelo Patri

Just about the time when I finished Three Junes, Allan returned from some errands with some bathing beauty photos:

He suggested we go to the Thursday free day at the museum and see their new exhibit.  While I knew it was about the depression, I did not expect it to bring back such strong memories of my grandmother.

Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum

From the museum website:

The Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum will host the special travelling exhibition Hope in Hard Times: Washington During the Great Depression.  Developed in partnership with Humanities Washington and the Washington State Historical Society, the exhibit focuses on the adversity and triumph of everyday Americans, comparing the struggles of the 1930s with those faced today.

The 1930s saw many changes to life here on the “North Beach” peninsula.  From man-made cataclysmic events like the fire that destroyed the Ilwaco High School and the fish trap ban that caused Chinook to lose its livelihood, area residents learned to rebuild and reinvent themselves.  Federal programs came to our region in the form of the Civilian Conservation Corps at Fort Canby and the WPA Documenting Communities in Oysterville. However, it was local ingenuity and generosity of spirit that gave our community hope in hard times.

The exhibit is built around 10 interpretive panels featuring stories, photographs and artwork from Washington’s Depression-era past.  Augmenting these traveling panels will be photographs, artifacts and information pulled from local collections to tell the story of the Great Depression here at the Beach.

Immediately, I was reminded of my grandmother’s kitchen:

On the floor next to the table sat a copper canner exactly like the one she used (that my mother later turned into a planter).

could be right out of my grandma’s kitchen

In the background of the kitchen vignette hung some photos of old Peninsula gardens:

And then there was a small display of house dresses that brought tears to my eyes.

While my grandmother wore jeans and a work shirt to garden, and liked pant suits when they came into fashion, I remember her in an assortment of pretty and comfortable flowered cotton dresses, especially one with yellow daffodils with which she wore a daffodil pin.  (For many years, I had that pin; I hope it is still around in a little box of mementos.)

Here are my Grandma and her friends in the nicest tea party dresses:

Gram in her back garden with housedress and cat (making a piece of tin can furniture)

The sewing display reminded me of her, as she made many quilts on her treadle machine.

I inherited it, although it was so heavy to move that I left it behind in Seattle.  I sewed a few things on it myself and well remember the rocking motion and soothing sound of the treadle.

Give yourself time to peruse the exhibit as there is much text on display.

Inspirational:  “There is enough hate in this world today without making it worse.”  I found some of Ginther’s paintings online here.

The old newspaper, The Ilwaco Tribune, is featured in some of the wall displays.

I learned the first name of Mr. Howerton, of interest because of all the gardens we care for along Howerton Way at the Port:

I had not known that the old high school had burned down and been rebuilt (with a struggle as the insurance did not cover a new building):

Nor had  I ever heard the apt description of Cape D. being “the great black hook”, black because of evergreen trees:

The Ilwaco Tribune came out of the storefront on the left, below, which now houses Olde Towne Café:

The Whole World Over

Home again, I began to re-read the second book in Julia Glass’s trilogy.

Last time, I read the second book first (in 2007) and did not read Three Junes until 2009, so due to my bad memory I barely realized that Fenno, a major character in the first book, is a charming background character in the second.    Today, having just read Three Junes, it was much more wonderful to run across more descriptions of one of my favourite fictional bookstores in The Whole World Over through the eyes of a character nicknamed Saga (Emily):

The description of a bird map reminded me of the Tootlepedal blog with its glorious photos of birds:

One of the protagonists is a baker named Greenie.  The description of her delectable creations reminds me of our local Pink Poppy Bakery:

Greenie’s husband is not presented very sympathetically until one gets to the chapter written from his point of view.  I empathize with the way he handles problems because it is just about what I do:

I’m very tortoiselike at the moment.

Another new character buys some roses…

Because I have grown to love silence (after years, in the past, of always having some sort of modern pop music radio on), I identified with this passage; I’ve never liked watching or listening to the news.  (I like to read the news):

[Apologies to MaryBeth: It’s harder than one would think to photograph the book without curves.]

My strongest memory from when I first read The Whole World Over is the haunting story of lost memory caused by a head injury to the character named Saga.  To this day, I credit the story with why I am so afraid to go into the bogsy wood or any place with trees during strong winds:

accident

To lose memory like that is one of my worst fears, partly because of seeing the effect of a head injury on Allan’s father, Dale.  Formerly a university professor, a motorcycle accident robbed him of his short term memory and he would say to me sadly, “I used to be a really smart guy, you know.”  And my friend Carol drove a bus for the disabled for awhile and said it was possible to get a memory-destroying injury just from a small accident in a parking lot, as had happened to one of her regular passengers.  So I daily remember to treasure my ability to remember.

numbers

Dale could still read but had no memory of what book he had just read, so would read it again (or watch the same movie again).  For all that I love this quotation by Nietzsche: “The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time”, I hope I never lose what reading comprehension that I now possess:

I did not finish The Whole World Over today.  It would have been nice if Three Junes had come from the library during a spate of several rainy days in a row, but I’d had to wait for it through all the rainy days and now a batch of nice days are predicted: bulb planting weather.  Even though it had not been a work day today, we indulged in our usual Thursday evening treat.

The Cove Restaurant

In these dark evenings there is no view of the golf course from our table.  We sit by a window.  Across the other tables, the fireplace makes the dining room cozy.

Chef Jason Lancaster was surfing in Mexico, we heard, so the menu partly featured the usual courses rather than his “rotating Thursday night Chef’s Mercy menu”.  Allan tried the reuben and pronounced it good.

Reuben at the Cove

We shared some fried artichokes…

We had the marvelous apricot cider…

I had the beet salad and the fish tacos.

Then it was home, where we watched two episodes of the unnecessarily gory but cleverly written True Blood and I got in another hour of reading before bedtime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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tourism trolley: four museums

Wednesday, 5 February 2014

Cranberry Museum

• After our visit to Oysterville, the trolley took us south to the Cranberry Museum at the Cranberry Research Center.  Confusingly, it is on Pioneer Road instead of Cranberry Road.  Allan still feels bad about the time he accidentally sent a tourist to Cranberry Road to find it.  The museum was closed for the day.  Somehow my friend who had done the trolley tour three weeks before had managed to score some cranberry ice cream at this stop, but we were not so lucky.  If you visit during summer hours, perhaps you can taste some.  We just pulled up by the museum for a moment to get a feel of the place.  We might have taken a self guided tour of the bogs had it not been an unusually freezing cold day.

photo courtesy Cranberry Museum

In the bog (below), photographed from the trolley (which, although unheated, did protect us from the wind chill factor that made the day feel like 8 degrees), the research scientists are testing out an assortment of different cranberry cultivars.

a test bog

The self guided tour goes along the green paths.  Heather is planted next to the bogs to attract the very earliest bees, so necessary for pollenating the cranberry plants.

bog paths

I’ve been in the Cranberry Museum before and blogged some years ago about the cranberry harvest, here.

World Kite Museum

Our next stop was The World Kite Museum on Sid Snyder Drive beach approach in Long Beach.  Even though Allan and I take care of a pocket garden by the front door, we rarely take time to go in to the museum.  This stop allowed enough time to explore two floors of displays of kites from around the world and even to make a little kite for ourselves!

photo courtesy World Kite Museum

I was relieved that our pocket garden, which we had not checked on since the beginning of staycation, looked okay.

kite garden with some bulbs coming up

inside the museum

World War II kite collection

The big windows set kite colours aglow.

From the west windows, we could see Back Country Horse Rides.  Three representatives of that company were on the tourism tour with us, along with the manager of Driftwood RV Park, the mayor and first lady of Long Beach, one of the workers from The Cottage Bakery (which the mayor and his wife own), a worker from Jessie’s Ilwaco Fish Company, Jayne Bailey of Bailey’s Café, a few people from Astoria, and more…  This led to exuberant cheering each time the trolley passed one of the businesses whose people were on the tour that day.

Back Country Horse Rides and, further west, the Adrift Hotel

more kites

I’m fond of the face kites.

Patty Rolfe, manager of the Kite Museum gift shop, led a brief workshop in making a small kite.

making kites

Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum

The trolley took us south to our town, Ilwaco, and to the museum on our street, Lake Street.  I made sure that Olde Towne Café, my favourite business, got a cheer from the riders as we passed by it.  We arrived at the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum and trooped in for a guided tour from the museum docents.

Rosemary, Ellen, and museum director Betsy Millard ready to take us on tour

part of our tour group

We split into two groups; the one Allan and I joined first toured the Clamshell Railroad annex of the museum, passing the historic train car on the way.  You can read up on the railroad here.  If I could go back in time and do one thing, it would be to ride on that train.

historic train car

In the annex building, the Peninsula Model Railroad Club has built a model of the Peninsula towns; for a quarter, you can make a little train run from Ilwaco to Oysterville (not to scale).  Some tour goers could not resist making train noises to go along with the experiences…sort of like Sheldon on Big Bang Theory.  Chugchugchugchug WOOOO WOOOO!

model of Ilwaco

Black Lake, just north of Ilwaco

The train made it all the way to Nahcotta without derailing.  Once Allan and I gave it a run and it derailed halfway up the track.  We quietly snuck into the other part of the museum (but did confess to someone there that the derailment had happened).

railway artifacts

one of the beautiful seats from a railway car

Ilwaco train dock

We followed our tour guide into a back door of the museum; I did not even know that door existed.

into the easternmost room of the museum building

lifejackets hang over an old lifeboat

crab pot

a life ring for Allan

Betsy Millard, museum director

a cool old boat

The next room has a model of horses seine fishing on the Columbia River.  Here’s a fascinating video on the history of horse seining, a practice which ended in 1948.

This part of the museum also has my favourite exhibit, a street of shops, each housing a different display of artifacts.

model street

The next room has a Lewis and Clark display.  As the docents themselves said, it is nothing on the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, our next destination.

trolley tour folks in the Lewis and Clark room

Lewis and Clark

The final room, which is usually the first one I enter but we were going back to front, has nature displays and a basket collection and some history of the Chinook Indians.

We exited by the charming little gift shop.

gift shop

back aboard the trolley!

For those who might wonder, the trim on the outside of the trolley and the interior woodwork is all oak.

Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center

The trolley took us up the loop road to the hills of Cape Disappointment, where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean.  This glorious park is just a mile or so from where we live.

view from the trolley, looking south over the river marshes at low tide

on a bluff overlooking the ocean, the museum

Despite the chill east wind (straight out of the Columbia Gorge) whipping fiercely up here, some of us went to the railing to enjoy the view.

the north jetty

interpretive sign about cormorants

west side of the interpretive center

Cape Disappointment Lighthouse

Just for fun, here’s a view from the Cape D lighthouse looking back, taken last spring.

view from the base of the lighthouse

Inside the interpretive center, one goes down a long ramp lined with Lewis and Clark information, with switchbacks and small plateaus with larger displays.

down we go…

A history buff could spend hours here.  I have a small confession:  I am not one for reading all the history a museum has to offer (unless its about the Clamshell Railroad, of which I never tire).  Allan, however, is someone who would read every word.

Jane of Bailey’s Café

This is a captivating display.

as is this

and this

There is one spot on the downward ramp where a turn takes you to a flight of stairs that leads up into the light of the view room that is the breathtaking heart of the museum.

entering a room of light

from the center to the lighthouse (south)

why we have two lighthouses

view to the jetty (north)

A park ranger was there to answer any questions.  I learned something new:  The entire North Jetty was originally free standing and over decades has filled in on the north side with sand, grass and trees so that only the westernmost end of it juts out into the ocean.

park ranger

part of a lighthouse beacon in display

a display about shipwrecks

I almost did not look up to see the collection of glass floats

Amazingly it was not quite three o clock when the trolley took us back north to the Long Beach train depot building where our vehicles were parked.  I never would have thought one could make it from Long Beach to Oysterville and back to Long Beach and Ilwaco and see so much in less than six hours.  Come be a tourist here, where the locals care enough to train in the art of hospitality.  There are two more of these trolley tours being offered, on March 6th and March 25th.  If any of you locals are interested, call Sue at Our Place at the Beach Hotel to save your spot.

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5-18: Coast Guard Station

We took part of the day off to go to the open house at the U.S. Coast Guard Station at Cape Disappointment.  I  had not planned to take as long a time touring as we did, but the event offered much that was of interest.

USCG at Cape D

One reason I particularly wanted to go was to see a view that I’d marveled at in other people’s local photos.  I had once had a hard time figuring out exactly what angle a photo could be taken that shows Ilwaco in the background of a small island.  It is from the Coast Guard main parking lot and  from the building above; I had not realized that the land curves enough so that the station has a view of the town.

looking toward Ilwaco

a bird for Mr. Tootlepedal

Allan noticed this very cool hose reel:

nautical hose reel

We went inside the building to watch this video, ably explained by a Coast Guard member:

If you watch the video, you’ll see where the boat flipped over, resulting in injuries to the crew and damage to the boat.

After that, we walked up a steep hill to the viewpoint over Dead Man’s Cove.  Years ago, before Sept. 11, 2001, when the station was more accessible to the public, Robert and I had walked to the cove but I was too scared to go down the steep cliff (holding a rope, as I recall!) to get to the beach.  Now access appeared to  be blocked due to the hazardous nature of the descent, but it is still just lovely to view from above.

path to Dead Man’s Cove overlook

beside the path: waterleaf

cow parsnip? maybe

above the cove

Dead Man’s Cove

the old stairs going down

pretty wonky stairs ascending above the cove

above the cove

low tide

This beach is so hidden a lot of people around here don’t seem to know it exists.

We then walked up the steep paved road to the Cape Disappointment lighthouse and caught more views of the cove from the side.

lighthouse road

Dead Man’s Cove from the side

deceptively gentle

In 1995, when Robert took our strong black lab (Bertie Woofter) swimming here, the dog almost got swept out to sea.  Robert almost went in after him, which would have spelled further disaster, but Bertie managed to get to shore between swells.

Further up the road, we found an old bunker…or something…with a green roof.

A swag of wild cucumber vine draped the front.  It could not have been arranged more artfully.

by nature’s design

A steep slippery short path led to the side of the pavement and revealed this overlook.

looking south toward Oregon

precipice

our goal: Cape Disappointment lighthouse

Looking toward the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center

On the cliffs these birds nest.

on a rock

And the white all down the cliff is their droppings.

bird cliffs (below is the rock they were sitting on)

view to the south toward Oregon (mouth of Columbia River)

The mouth of the Columbia and the Columbia Bar are known as the Graveyard of the Pacific, thus the locals love the rescuing bravery of our Coast Guard.

Back down the long rather steep road we walked, passed by a man with a brown dog who was pulling quite hard.

Down on the flatland, the cute Long Beach trolley was in service as a shuttle from a larger parking lot.

base of the lighthouse road

We explored the back of the main building at the base and found that in their garden is also plagued by horsetail.

Horsetail in the garden…If only it were well behaved!

calla lilies against a higher building

Callas

I walked behind the main building by this mossy rock wall…

mossy wall

and came upon the Coast Guard Auxiliary lunch tent!

Coast Guard Auxiliary

The Coast Guard Auxiliary are made of tough stuff; by now it had begun raining quite hard, but this auxiliary member and his dog just sat calmly in the rain, leaving the small picnic tent for the event guests.

After tasty sandwiches, Allan and I walked out to the motor life boat school docks where an interesting array of equipment was on display:

members of The Ilwaco Volunteer Fire Department

a Damage Control Trainer for boaters!

in which boaters practice fixing assorted catastrophes

Assorted rescue equipment was on display.

rescue boat

helicopter rescue basket

South Pacific County Technical Rescue

One of the technical rescue folk told us that last year the event had been much better, with “more vcndors”.  I was enjoying myself immensely and now I really wish we had gone last year, as well!

We walked out to the end of the display area where I noticed, at the most extreme southwest point of Washington State, in full salt wind, pruned but probably not irrigated, a strongly growing escallonia hedge!

Escallonia prevails! (and a little salmonberry)

Beyond it, nothing but the A Jetty and the mouth of the Columbia.

to the sea

shapely

Back at the Motor Lifeboat School dock, hardy folk could get a ride on a boat.

boat ride

I’m vertiginously daunted by plank walkways and steep ramps:

Some of the children had a hard time with the steep ramp. (Steep due to low tide.)  He was braver than me.

Anyway, I wanted to make sure to get back to Ilwaco Saturday Market to get my weekly photos taken there, and I feared it would shut down early due to bad weather.  Right?  So Allan went out to take these boat photos….

surf rescue dummy

…I walked back along the road to the main building, reading signs along the way that explained boating danger.

And admiring the beautiful setting.  Coast Guard housing can be seen behind the little island.   What an amazing place to live.  One of the Auxiliary members told me that after training here and then moving elsewhere, it is common for retired Coasties to return here to retire.

geese

Imagine living here and watching the tides and storms.  And being responsible for maritime rescues.  It must be a heightened state of being.

It was true that, as I thought might happen, some of the Saturday Market vendors were closing early. When we got there a bit after two, a number of the tents were already down.  The weather at the port was strangely much worse and windier than it had been down at the Coast Guard station!

Pink Poppy Bakery‘s Madeline said she was staying till the end of market (4 PM) and so we got our lemon glazed butter cookies.    On the green cake stand would have been my favourite lime bundt cakes, but one must get to the market early to snag those.

Pink Poppy Bakery

We can segue back into gardening with some more photos from Madeline’s booth.

Every week, Pink Poppy has flowers for sale.

And then we went to work for six hours, but that’s another story.

view to Cape D State Park

a bird for Mr. Tootlepedal

on the lighthouse fence

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a Not Job of 2006

Allan is going through his old photos and found these, of a job that we were offered in 2006.  Keep in mind that I am terrified of heights!   We got a call from a park ranger at Fort Canby State Park (now Cape Disappointment) that they had an area that needed weeding.  I pictured it down by the campground but instead, he took us to a bluff by the North Head Lighthouse…

outside the lighthouse fence

and showed us, in all seriousness, that this area needed weeding in order to help along some native grasses that had been planted:

just weed…out there

On both sides of the curved narrow strip, the cliff falls straight down to roiling waves.  I got dizzy just thinking of it!

We later heard that some sort of youthful crew did the job AND that they were roped in while doing it!

 

 

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