Our First Cloudy Day In Weeks

We awoke to a cloudy day.  We have not had a cloudy day since we were in Louisiana.  That is the last place we saw rain also.  Now that we are on the northwest coast I suspect we will see more clouds and rain.  It is what keeps this area so green and lush.

Many people have emailed me and said they don't know how to post a comment on our blog.  If you notice at the end of each blog post there is the word, "Comments".  Click on that and a small box opens up where you can write something.  Then click submit.  I have to review all comments before they are posted on the blog so it might be a day or two before you see it.  You can also rate the blog post next to "Reactions".  I hope this helps.  We love to see comments.  It makes us feel connected to the people we care about and we love hearing from people who happen on to the blog.

It is after 9:00 AM and we are still sitting here in our pajamas drinking coffee.  It is nice not to have to get up and race off to some place.  I didn't tell you that I am wearing pajamas for the first time since I was about 10 years old.   When the nights started getting cool as we moved farther north, I stopped and bought some.  I was freezing and slept almost fully dressed.  We do have heat but it uses lots of propane.  We only use it in the morning to take the chill off.  Getting up in the night to use the potty can be a chilling experience.

Last night we warmed up my corn bag in the mircowave and took it to bed with us.  Our feet were cold so we put it between us and planted our feet on it.  When your feet are warm you are warm all over.

The state of Oregon provides wifi service in some of its campgrounds and rest areas.  They charge for the use by the minute, day, week or month.  I signed up for a day for $3.99.  Darlie said I should sign up for a week.  I couldn't see the sense in that.  We might only be here for a couple of days and we might not stay in another state park.  Well, I am a big dumby cause my daily use internet runs out tonight at 8:00 PM so if I want to use it after that I have to pay for another day at $3.99.  I could have had a week for $7.99.  Once again, I should have listened to my wife.  I am learning...... slowly.

We finally got around and headed out for a hike.  What we thought were clouds in the morning turned out to be sea fog.  It burned off by 11:00 AM and gave way to bright sunshine.

We programed a geocache into our GPS that is supposed to be located in this park.  The GPS led us up a steep trail to Harris Butte.   It is a high overlook at the top of a big rock.

There are seals on that little beach.  This is a view from Harris Butte.

We looked around for the geocache but couldn't find it.  I think it is mostly due to the fact that I hate heights.  Looking very far beyond the relative safety of the trail itself was out of the question.  We decided to pass on this one.  I am sure it is there for the more adventuresome.  I wasn't about to hang out over the edge to see if I could find the thing.

For those who don't know about geocaching go here to learn more about it:  geocaching.com.
It is a fun hobby if you own a GPS device.   People hide things all over the world.  Then they register those things on the website with latitude and longitude coordinates.  The object is to locate the hidden object by following the leading of your GPS.  Most have a log that you sign recording the date of your visit.  Some contain small trade items.  You take something and leave something.

At the overlook, Darlie did spot a survey marker embedded in the top of a rock.  It is a metal plate with survey information on it.  It was placed there by the US Survey and Geodetic something or other.
We didn't find the cache but finding this thing relieved the sting of defeat.

Harris Butte

We made our way down the butte, as it is called, to the beach.  We decided to walk north on the beach today.  As we were descending to the beach we came to some people who had big scopes set up.  We inquired about what they were watching.  There was a group of harbor seals sunning themselves on a beach of a nearby large rock.  They had us take a look.  Sure enough they were there.

The seals are those things on the lower left of the beach near the water.

We walked down the beach as far as you could go before you come to impassible rocks.  The wind was blowing very hard.   It was freezing.  People were running around in shorts and tee shirts.  We saw one family with hardly enough clothing to cover one body let along four.  They must have antifreeze for blood.  We have noticed there are many redheads in this area.  Where we come from you seldom see a redhead.   Must be many of those Oregon trail pioneers were Irish.

That is the face of a person who is cold and doesn't want to admit it.

We found a cozy spot out of the wind to have our lunch.  We didn't have a begging squirrel to pester us today.  It would have been nice if we had.  We did pass a grassy patch earlier that had no less than ten of these red squirrels running around.  One of them ran right up to us looking for a handout.

After lunch we headed back up the beach towards the campground.  It felt colder than when we first came down here.  We had passed a couple of girls sunbathing on the way out.  They were gathering up their stuff when we came back.  They said it was too cold for them too.  Still others played in the surf.

We are back to the MH now.  It is afternoon nap time.  Then we will sit in a warm spot out of the wind and read for awhile.  We love this state park but we have decided tomorrow to move on.  There are other state parks up the coast.  We will see if we can find one that still has room for one more.

Wind art.   The wind erodes away dry sand leaving all kinds of shapes in the wet sand.

The rest of our day will be just lounging around.  Darlie's feet and knees have had enough exercise for one day.  We will make something simple for dinner tonight.  I'm not sure when I will have a connection again when we leave here.  Keep checking in on us.  We will post what we do each day when we can.  God bless all the Dad's on Father's Day.