Back Home From the Sea

We are back home in Seattle now, after a three night stay at the cabin at Rockaway Beach on the Oregon Coast.

There are flowers from our garden on the kitchen table again. We joined friends for Friday breakfast as usual and laid in grocery supplies for us and for a Father's Day BBQ. 

We left Monday morning for the coast. We made our usual coffee stop two hours in at the Starbucks in Longview.  There we discovered that the Longview bridge over the Columbia River, which we can see from the Starbucks, was jammed up due to a stalled truck at the top of the high rise of the bridge.  We always cross the river here to the Oregon side.

We could wait, not knowing how long, or we could drive the highway on the north side of the river, with the option of taking a little ferry at Puget Island, or cross the bridge at the mouth of the Columbia, at Astoria. It had been a long time since we had driven that route, and we were ready for an adventure, so off we went, following the river to the sea. When we got to Cathlamet, where the ferry crossing is, we would have had a half hour wait, so we drove on.

 There are wonderful views of the river, and lovely forested sections inland. The highway is much better than when we last drove it, long ago. 

 I remembered there was a covered bridge about halfway to the sea, and used my Google maps to find it just a bit off the heathen path. 

 The Grays River will eventually arrive at Grays Harbor, on the coast. 

 Tom found a lovely maple tree to pet. 

 There are small farms accessed by the covered bridge.

 And then we were back to the river, and approaching the Astoria bridge at "Dismal Notch", a name given by the Lewis and Clark Expedition, on a day nothing like this lovely one. 

 Now on the Oregon side, we drove down the coast to our favorite overlook, at Neakanie Mountain in Oswald West State park. 

 Wild flowers are in bloom, including lots of foxglove and this cow parsley along the roadsides. 

 It was about 4:00 when we finally arrived at the cabin. We got unpacked and then went for a beach walk.

 I put together a salad and we got takeout clam chowder for supper. Then at the golden hour we went out to watch the sun go down on the first day of our getaway to Rockaway. 

 Our cabin.