Escaping the Heat

Today, Saturday, we finally had a little rain... and a lot cooler weather. Hallelujah! I am not a lover of sun. Clouds are beautiful. But before we had rain or clouds or cooler weather, I escaped for a day (Wednesday) to the coast to enjoy the lovely, damp and cool fog, which came and went. When the sun came out, the temperature may have climbed to 70 degrees, but that was at least 20 degrees cooler than at home.

After picking up my friend and tour guide for the day, Dawn, at her home in Nelscott (part of Lincoln City now), we headed for Boiler Bay where we had a picnic lunch. Below us was the boiler, partly uncovered.

Beyond, we caught a glimpse of a whale heading south. After our picnic, we headed south, too. All along the way we saw whales when we stopped. And sometimes Black Oystercatchers since we always stopped where there were offshore rocks, like this spot near Seal Rock.

Here five BLOY were visible through the fog.

At the historic lighthouse at Cape Foulweather, we spotted two whales and I managed to click the shutter at the right time to catch one spouting, and then curling its back in a dive. The interpreter there said these are resident whales that we're seeing now off the coast. Oregon has at least 200 resident Gray Whales.

Looking south toward Otter Rock, fog bathed the coastline here and there.

South of Waldport we drove inland to Eckman Lake, where we found a jillion (rough estimate) Yellowlegs and Dowitchers and possibly other shorebirds... too far away for photographs.

The Great Egret was closer.

We finished a lovely, wonderfully cool day with ice cream at BJ's in Waldport. Thank goodness our farm is only 45 minutes from heat relief at the coast.

Johnny had a different way of cooling off. Grandson Ian nominated him for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that has been going around facebook. One has to to dump a bucket of ice water over one's head... and donate to the ALS Association. Johnny accepted on Thursday. Irv helped.

I'll stick to cooling off at the coast.