No, now I remember. I was going to post a handful of theme photos from bustling downtown Gearhart which we didn't actually discover until fairly late in our visit. The photos that follow were all taken on our last morning in town, after we'd stopped at the Pacific Way Bakery to pick up supplies for the trip home. By 11:00 Monday morning, the cases were pretty picked over but what they still had was pretty darned tasty. We sat on a nearby bench to eat (turnover for me; scone for Scott) and drink our coffee. As we sat there, I couldn't help noticing that Gearhart is a very bikey little community. How bikey? Well look:
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Gearhart: City of Bikes
An hour or more of fighting with a slow connection followed by Myrna's conviction that every site on the web was insecure has led to my forgetting entirely what it is I was going to write about here. Was it this year's grape jamly production? The Castle Cross The Magnet Carter, aka my current book which has both an absurd title and an off-putting jacket design but which I'm still finding unputdownable?
No, now I remember. I was going to post a handful of theme photos from bustling downtown Gearhart which we didn't actually discover until fairly late in our visit. The photos that follow were all taken on our last morning in town, after we'd stopped at the Pacific Way Bakery to pick up supplies for the trip home. By 11:00 Monday morning, the cases were pretty picked over but what they still had was pretty darned tasty. We sat on a nearby bench to eat (turnover for me; scone for Scott) and drink our coffee. As we sat there, I couldn't help noticing that Gearhart is a very bikey little community. How bikey? Well look:
No, now I remember. I was going to post a handful of theme photos from bustling downtown Gearhart which we didn't actually discover until fairly late in our visit. The photos that follow were all taken on our last morning in town, after we'd stopped at the Pacific Way Bakery to pick up supplies for the trip home. By 11:00 Monday morning, the cases were pretty picked over but what they still had was pretty darned tasty. We sat on a nearby bench to eat (turnover for me; scone for Scott) and drink our coffee. As we sat there, I couldn't help noticing that Gearhart is a very bikey little community. How bikey? Well look:
Saturday, September 10, 2016
That birds of northern Oregon post I might write some day
Scott turns his back on Kelso. Or on being at work on a Friday afternoon. |
One of many sets of pelicans to be seen off the shores of Northern Oregon |
Splooshing terns |
I'm calling these marbled godwits |
On our first outing we failed to find the passage through the creek, river, and sodden environs to reach 101, but we were more successful a day later. On that second expedition, we encountered scores of plovers and sandpipers. Reading reports on the OBOL page a few days later, I found that odds are there were some other, more unusual birds in the mix but since the mud was a bit like quicksand, we didn't want to stand in any one spot for too long.
Handsome whimbrel we saw on more than one beach |
On Sunday we got into the car and drove ten miles or so north to Fort Stevens State Park, a spot that I've got to say gets far too little attention in the otherwise excellent Day Hiking Oregon Coast. For one thing, the park is huge. For another, while the Peter Iredale might be termed a bit disappointing, it's only because Scott wanted to see it that we were on the proper part of the beach to see the thousands upon thousands of sooty shearwaters streaming south--and also resting in huge numbers on the water while on their migration. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever witnessed. If you want to be put into perspective, just watch a zillion birds flapping about their business out over the crashing waves of an indifferent ocean for a few minutes. After Scott pried me away--and we'd visited the remains of the Peter Iredale--we headed a bit further up the beach to start our proper beach walk along the spit and, eventually, the Columbia River.
All those tiny black specks between water and sky are birds--sooty shearwaters. |
I want these to be something other than nutrias, but that's probably what they are. |
Talk about labels, as if Papa was a pickle bottle
So it's like this, blahdeblahblah. Rather than writing a post here either about making grape jamly today or about the excellent Labor Day minibreak to the Oregon coast on which we saw some thousands of migrating sooty shearwaters--or even just sharing a bit of Proust about clouds that struck me a few days ago, I've spent the last few hours creating not one final label for this year's jamly (featured above) but two wasted ones as well. The first one, well, it was pretty swell. In fact, here it is
I feel like it has a '60s soft rock album feel to it. But then I realized that I had selected the same Gradka photo that I'd used on this year's apricot label and, in fact, the layout was pretty damned similar too.
So I tossed the endearing Gradka image aside and went with a different, more austere Gradka, eventually landing on something like this:
I wasn't entirely sure that I liked it all that much and then Scott questioned how legible it would be so I fussed with the type a bit more until I decided that the whole thing was too disconnected and I should start over again. Eventually the label at the very top came about, and it will be this year's grape jamly label. Don't think that I don't know that I squander too much time on things that no one other than Scott and I give a second thought to. But hey! This year's raspberry label is quite fine:
Coming up some day maybe, birds, etc. of the northern Oregon coast.
I feel like it has a '60s soft rock album feel to it. But then I realized that I had selected the same Gradka photo that I'd used on this year's apricot label and, in fact, the layout was pretty damned similar too.
So I tossed the endearing Gradka image aside and went with a different, more austere Gradka, eventually landing on something like this:
I wasn't entirely sure that I liked it all that much and then Scott questioned how legible it would be so I fussed with the type a bit more until I decided that the whole thing was too disconnected and I should start over again. Eventually the label at the very top came about, and it will be this year's grape jamly label. Don't think that I don't know that I squander too much time on things that no one other than Scott and I give a second thought to. But hey! This year's raspberry label is quite fine:
Coming up some day maybe, birds, etc. of the northern Oregon coast.
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