Sunday, March 17, 2024

Sunrise and Sunset

I was officially released from my sling for my shoulder surgery - and on top of a long, wet, and dreary winter combined with clear skies and 70* temps forecasted, I decided to tempt fate and do some road tripping.

I got up very early to be back in Oregon to photograph the Milky Way over Mt. Hood. That didn't turn out, but sunset did!


Catherine and I were there the week prior, but had only rain and clouds to contend with. This time, I lucked out with the sun cresting the horizon from directly behind the Mt. Hood.


There were quite a few people to keep me company, it was a popular day to be out. After that I made my way to the Olympic peninsula - Ruby Beach to be specific. I actually did a little hike in the Hoh rainforest, but made my way back to the beach in time for sunset. Aside from being way more out in the boonies, it was also way more crowded than the viewpoint for Mt. Hood.


While the sun was still up, this arch was Instagram-influencer-central. While I have removed several people with the magic of Photoshop, none of them were in the arch with the sun shining through. I just had to wait for the crowds to head home. I also stuck around for the stars to come out; those were nice enough photos, just not worth sharing.

Best wishes,

Marc

Saturday, December 2, 2023

Seaside, Oregon

We are in Seaside, Oregon for the weekend. Catherine had a conference for her scrapbooking stuff and the rest of us tagged along for a quick getaway. Fortunately, Seaside isn't that long of a drive, but it feels very different from the Tacoma area.

We started this morning logging in to Leah's award ceremony for her Girl Scout Gold Award. She also earned the Trifecta Award (Bronze, Silver, now Gold). To say we are proud of what Leah has accomplished is a serious understatement!


Once that was done, the kids and I drove south 10-15 minutes to Ecola State Park on the coast. This may look familiar to Goonies fans, though we didn't see any signs of One-Eyed Willie.



We explored the park a little bit. The wind was somewhat brisk and it was threatening to rain the whole time.


No sooner had we sat down to lunch in Cannon Beach than the rain started in earnest. Good timing (and good times)!

Cheers,

Marc


Sunday, November 5, 2023

Waikiki Beach

I made the drive down to Cape Disappointment State Park yesterday afternoon, since the tides and lighting looked promising across a couple of weather apps.

I hadn't been there before, I was glad I made the effort. I will go again when the waves are bigger, but this was fun.



Cheers,

Marc

Sunday, October 15, 2023

Annular Eclipse

We just got back from Crater Lake National Park where we got to see (barely!!!) the annular solar eclipse (the "ring of fire"). Christina came to visit to see the eclipse, and we gambled on Crater Lake. Unfortunately, the weather did not fully cooperate, but the sun did make a few (incredibly) brief appearances.




We got to the rim where we intended to view the eclipse well behind schedule, which was super annoying since the rest of the world did not (it was busy). There was a bit of snow on the rim - at least two people got stuck which required park rangers to pull them out.



We lucked out with an unappreciated spot just off the rim. After a short 30-second walk, we had an incredible view to ourselves. We had about an hour wait in just above-freezing temperatures with a light wind for the eclipse to begin; however, the clouds had other thoughts.



Right before the full angularity, the clouds finally broke. The photo above was shot with my solar filter on the camera - but it was really hard to frame up and get photos. Once I looked up and saw the eclipse with my own eyes, I figured that if the clouds were thick enough to protect my eyes, they were thick enough to protect the camera.



This allowed me to rapid-fire take a ton of photos. The sun played peek-a-boo with the clouds, but when the full angularity came out, you could hear everyone on the rim cheer and clap. It really was quite neat.



Afterwards, we grabbed lunch at a little place outside the park, and then headed to Toketee Falls. It was about a mile round trip, reasonably crowded (since the trail isn't that rough and is short).



On the way back to our cabin, we stopped at National Creek Falls. It was also a half-mile hike (one way), but since it was off the beaten track, we had the place literally to ourselves.


It was just Leah, Christina, and I who hike to this one - we all agreed it was way better. I took a senior photo of Leah here, we had to be quick since the falls were kicking up a good bit of spray.

Cheers,

Marc

Saturday, October 7, 2023

Out and About

We had a couple of really nice weekends, after rain during the week - which was a nice way to do it!

Last weekend I took the bike out to the Olympic National Forest to try my luck on the gravel roads.



I got "lost" along the way, but ended up figuring out where I needed to go to get to the High Steel Bridge (standing on it in the photo, below).



So this weekend, I did it even better by heading south to check out the south side of Mt. St. Helens. I did the first section of the Washington Backcountry Discovery Route, which was a blast.



Fall colors were in full effect, and I got to see four volcanoes - Hood, St. Helens, Adams, and Rainier.



The BDR got a bit sketchy in places, but never too far outside of my comfort zone.


The BDR goes right past Takhlakh Lake (above, and from the recent Moto Mountain Man adventure, so I stopped just long enough to snap a photo and then got back on the road.

All total, I spent about 12 hours on the bike - I'm tired!

Cheers,

Marc


Sunday, September 24, 2023

Moto Mountain Man 2023, the final part

The morning at Soda Creek was COLD - we had a hard frost. Fortunately, we only had to wait a bit for the sun to come up and really start warming us up. We had a motel room waiting for us, so we weren't in a huge rush . . . but it was in Fields, Oregon - population 12. I didn't miss a decimal point. The town/village is tiny, but it does have a gas station ($8.25 a gallon of gas), a motel, and a restaurant. There is a Backcountry Discovery Route that just opened this year that kept the place somewhat busy. They are famous for their milkshakes (justified - generous serving size and delicious!) and hamburgers. We got there, had a milkshake, unpacked, showered, and then had dinner. I still couldn't finish the fries that came with my burger. Good stuff!

The next morning we rode south into Nevada and then back into Oregon through some incredibly remote stretches of road. In Oregon, we came across a hang gliding launch spot though there were not any hang gliders when we went through. We pushed on and got to the campground in Crater Lake National Park just as it was getting dark. There was no fire ban, which was a first in almost 2 full weeks of travel through Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and Nevada. Jason stayed to enjoy a fire while I boogied up to the rim to take some photos. The stars reflecting in the lake were incredible!



I got my photos and then hurried back down to enjoy the fire. We had two bundles, so there was plenty of time to relax and enjoy the moment. We headed up to the rim to see the sights in daylight and had to detour 30-45 minutes to get gas.



We rode through some gorgeous parts of Oregon on our way to the coast. Unfortunately there were two fires, one in Oregon and one in California, that contributed to the smoke/fog along the coast. It looked like fog but smelled like smoke - weird.



We dipped down into California to check out the redwoods (Jedediah Smith Redwoods State and National Park), but the smoke was somewhat atrocious.


Because the road we were going to take was closed for fire activity, we turned around and rode back up the way we came. We were improvising at this point. There were loads of campgrounds along the river we were riding along, but they were closed due to fires. We eventually stumbled upon a campground that had a site available and inexplicably also had no fire ban (we seriously rode through about 2 hours of apocalyptic smoke). 

That was it. The next morning we rode a fantastic National Forest Road, which we basically had to ourselves, until we were a bit outside of Portland. We jumped on the highway, detoured to go see Mt. St. Helens, and got back home 3-4 pm. Plenty of time for laundry, showers, and a good meal (thanks to Catherine).

That wraps up this year's Mountain Man. Cheers,

Marc

Friday, September 22, 2023

Moto Mountain Man 2023, part 3

Jason and I hit the road the next day and headed for the Olympic Peninsula. We made the ride up to Hurricane Ridge and to the Hoh Rainforest on our way to our campsite on the coast. It was getting late by the time we finally got there (somewhat heavy traffic slowed us down), and it was threatening to rain - which we hadn't seen on the weather apps. So once we hit the coast, we hustled to Kalaloch Beach and our campsite.



It drizzled on us a bit the next morning, but we checked out the Kurt Kobain memorial in Aberdeen (unless you are a HUGE Nirvana fan, don't make the effort - we stopped only because we were passing through and still somewhat regret the lost time...). We had a nice enough brunch in Aberdeen and then continued to the Gifford Pinchot National Forest surrounding Mt. Adams, the other stratovolcano (like Rainier and Mt. St. Helens).



We camped at Lake Takhlakh, which had amazing views of Mt. Adams. I had to get up in the middle of the night since clouds were out at sunset and actually threatening rain. The next morning we crossed the Columbia River and circled Mt. Hood on our way to Bend, Oregon. 



We had a reserved campsite at Soda Creek Campground, adjacent to the Sparks Lake area - both (thankfully) under-appreciated areas. We set up camp and then rode another mile or so from the campground to Sparks Lake. We caught some amazing clouds reflected in the lake and a nice enough sunset.


We hung around long enough to shoot some stars, then headed back to camp and the Soda Creek where I could face south and photograph the Milky Way.

Cheers,

Marc