Holiday Lights at Shore Acres State Park

I'll post as many pictures as I can before going crazy.  Shore Acres SP is in the Coos Bay, Oregon area and what a beautiful place it is.  Ocean overlooks, frog ponds, flower gardens, wide open grassy picnic areas, summer concerts on the lawn, etc.etc... And at this time of year volunteers throw the switch on some 400,000 "Holiday Lights" - what a sight.  As an after note, all the pictures do not appear sequentially from beginning to end but it is a royal pain in the butt to rearrange them.  But that's enough talking -  one more thing before I shut up... I didn't have a mono-pole or tripod so pardon the "fuzzy" appearance - kinda hard holding perfectly still with a 1/2 second  ~ 1 second shutter speed.  OK... sorry about this but to remind you, a single click on a pic will get you a larger view and the option to look at just the pictures without all my distracting comments.   And for those of you tolerant enough to continue with my comments - just hit the "Esc" key after clicking on the pic to return to the blog.....

The frog pond 

What the hell salmon are doing in a frog pond is beyond me!

Close up at the frog pond

Way out of sequence but...

OK.. I'll give you a hint - this is the first view you get upon entering

Remember the seeing the butterfly?  The closeup belongs after this picture.

This is probably my favorite picture

Or maybe this one?

Becky and one of our friends Sheryl.  Sheryl is NOT wearing a hat!  ONLY KIDDING ONLY KIDDING

If you haven't figured it out yet... the display area, maybe 10 acres, wanders and generally are centered around the frog pond

View this picture and the next three quickly to understand the sequence of lights.  Very inventive!

Any guesses what this is suppose to be?  Answer after the pictures.

As any of you know that take digital pictures - it's pretty easy to shoot, well, in this case 250 pictures.  Can you imagine the old technology 35mm film and development costs?  Anyway, we can't thank the volunteers and sponsors enough for their time and efforts.  This has to be the best light show I have ever seen.  

Answer:  The picture is suppose to be an underwater view of the surface (the blue) and the feet of a duck swimming.  It took us a few minutes but Becky recognized it.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE

East Lolo Pass Road

I doubt very highly that you'll ever see a blog / travel channel host do a bit on Lolo Pass Road - East or West, Welches, OR.  And so I will.  This post is a good example of why Becky and I enjoy watching the grass grow for a while in the various locations we visit.  We came to the Welches, OR,  area, just as the majority of pre-snow visitors do,  to view THEE main attraction - Mt. Hood.  But unlike many who rush in, snap a thousand pictures of Hood, spend a night in a local lodge, and then speed off to the next wonder in this great country of ours, we have plenty of time to avoid the potholes just around the corner near the Dairy Queen.  And so we discovered East Lolo Pass Road.

We pass these fellas all the time - today we decided to stop for a couple shots.  Sasquach has a $3500 price tag.

So off we go and about a mile into the ride we came around a corner to this view - Mt Hood.  Let me back up a minute.  Uncharacteristically I spent some time researching the name of the mountain that the Lolo Pass Road traverses.  I was sure that the name would be Lolo as is obvious but didn't see it in print.  And here's a benefit of authoring a blog - ya get to make shit up... so herein, all these pictures were taken on LOLO MOUNTAIN!

In the close up ... stop the presses.... I was watching CNN's post-debate coverage just now and heard that the Secret Service has given Cain the code word "Cornbread" which is the name he chose for himself.  I mean come-on!  

Oh yeah, the close up, the "slide area" to the left is actually Oregon Glacier and the slide to the right is Zig Zag Glacier.  Yes, Zig Zag faces a town just off US-26, Zig Zag.  I'll be back to Hood directly but in the mean time, Lolo Pass parallels the Sandy River seen here about 100 feet below the road.  Most all the rivers in this area are home to one species of Salmon or another, Brook, Brown and Rainbow Trout, and winter run Steelhead.  Right now there seems to be a lull between runs.

The fall colors here in Oregon just East of Portland are spotty at best.  We simply haven't had overnight lows, low enough to give the trees the push they need.  Still pretty,  and with Hood in the background, well, you know the "worth a thousand words" saying.

Here's a better look at Oregon Glacier - and the tops of these 100' tall Lodge Pole Pines.  Magnificent!

Another great thing about these blogs is... if you get tired of reading or looking at pictures (which by the way, really don't do nature justice) you can just click and away ya go.  But don't miss the next picture.

The first few  miles of Lolo Pass Road are "maintained year round by the city / state.  Above that the road, although paved another 10 miles is not.  The BPA (Bonneville Power Authority) has this major right of way for its power transmission.  We spent some time "glassing" the ROW but didn't see any animals.  Matter of fact, we have seen very, very few animals this whole summer up here in the NW.

Same day, same road, same mountains and valley, just slightly different atmospherics at play - my favorite picture and a good way to end this thing.

Well, I guess one more thing.  We will be moving over and down the coast to Bandon by the Sea, OR for the winter.  Bandon is on the coast and in the "Banana Belt".  Where there are the occasional overnight lows in the 30's, it seldom gets much colder than that - but it does rain, A LOT.  So we're going to give it a shot for the winter.  Bandon is noted for basically two things, its Golf Courses and is the nation's Storm Watching Capital.  Can't wait to snap some GRAY pictures!

Ninilchik, Alaska

Ninilchik is a Russian Settlement about half way down the Kenai Peninsula, equidistant between Soldotna and Homer.  "A quaint little drinking village with a fishing problem".  Beck and I, along with friends Ron and Inge M. flew out of Seattle to Anchorage in June for a week or so of fishing and exploring.  A bucket list item for Ron and I.   It is incredible to think that, after months of planning, and careful cramming / packing suitcases that I would forget to pack my blankety blank CAMERA - now isn't it!  Well... leave it to me.  So the pics included in this post are from Inge's (who unlike me didn't forget) camera and or borrowed / cell phone gems, and from a guy we met along the way, David Berman (Kenai Fjords pics) - Thanks David.

There is a sign, posted at a pullout on the road to the Ninilchik Spit, which greets visitors in Russian, the original language of the village, and English.  The sign says it all: 

"Privet (Greetings). My name is Ninilchik Village. I was settled around the turn of the 19th century by creoles, Russians, Aleuts, and Indians. The names of my earlier children were Kvasnikoff, Oskolkoff, Kompkoff, and Astrogin. They were retired hunters and trappers that wanted to find a homeland of their own. Some of their great grandchildren still reside here to this day. My Russian Orthodox Church, on the hill, was built in the early 20th century. My river, and Cook Inlet are best known for their fish. My beaches are known for their clams. I ask that you please respect my people, their heritage, their culture, their property, and my river and beaches. Spasebo (Thank you)." 

Following are three pictures taken from Ninilichik Village - I don't know why they are so fuzzzy...

Becky told me that there was one grave that had a bag of "Skittles" propped up against the marker.  

AFISHUNT (e-ffici-ent get it get it?) CHARTERS are the folks in Ninilchik that provided us the two Cook's Inlet Halibut Charter trips and the two Kasilof River King Salmon Drift Boat trips that we took. They also operate a RV Park and have fully furnished Park Model RV's that we rented.  Sorry - no pics so just picture a couple log cabins on the Western Slope of a National Forest and that's where we stayed.  Well OK, I definitely exaggerated there but what do you know!  It's my blog so I'll lie as often as I want. 

The picture above is not from one of our Halibut trips but we had similar results.  Or if you prefer, that's me on the left, Ron on the right and we caught ALL of the Halibut..  Actually the state has a 2 fish per day limit.  AFISHUNT also cleaned, vacuum packed, flash froze, and shipped our fish to us in the lower 48 a few days after we left.

What trip to Alaska would be complete without a picture of an eagle.  In this case, Becky caught the female in the nest and the male flying off to get supper for Mom and the eaglets.

You can expect the weather on the Kenai in Alaska in June to be rather wet.  In the ten days we were there, the ONLY rainy day was that day we had chartered a bush pilot for a two hour flight seeing tour of the three volcanoes on the Kenai - I remember Mt Redoubt as one of them.  We had to scub the flight and didn't have time to reschedule.  But, along with Eagles, you can't leave Alaska without snapping a picture of a float plane or two.  Becky did a great job getting this one.

Probably the nicest (weather and sightseeing) day we had was the day we drove over to Seward and boarded a Kenai Fjords Sightseeing Ship for a 10 hour trip in the Fjords.  I will definitely have to get some pictures another passenger shared with us because the scenery was breathtaking and way beyond any words I could come up with.  We saw something like three different types of whales, all manner of birds and other aquatic life.  The day was picture perfect.... and me without my camera but again, thanks to David Berman, here are a few shots from his  Picasa Album.  Click the magic Clicky if you want to see many more pics of the Fjords.

Given the opportunity to revisit and redo that trip - I'll raise my hand!  Hopefully these pics will not be fuzzy once I publish - if the Fjords cruise pictures are not clear, just go to Davids Picasa Album by clicking the clicky above.