Oregon minibreak, largely in photos

It's the end of a week off from work, and I'm likely coming down with a cold (hello autumn!) so I'm mostly posting photos here.

A week ago we set off for a few days on the Oregon coast. We traveled by way of Astoria so we could visit the Blue Scorcher Bakery & Cafe which has become one of my favorite destinations. (Truly, I have said to Scott, "It's only a little more than three hours away; let's get a car and go to the Blue Scorcher! Maybe they'll have raisin bread." Thus far, he has resisted, though he loves the breakfast of wonder. It's just a matter of time.) This trip, Astoria upped its efforts to entice us to move there:

Jasper of Mary's Milk Monsters at the Astoria Farmers Market

Not only were there several soap vendors at the Astoria Farmers Market, one of them had a goat with her! Mary started raising goats about eight years ago, as part of a 4H project. Now she has a herd of about a dozen goats and her own little soap company. And, as we returned to the car, there was this:

Just a few deer out for their Sunday constitutional in Astoria

Eventually, we reached Newport where the wildlife was more sea- and beach-based:

One of about two dozen sea lions living La Vida Lion on Newport's Bay side

Never have I seen so much whale activity in the wild! Gray whales galore (providing little in the way of photos but much in-person excitement).

It was a good time for pelican sightings.

As well as my beloved peeps

And this somewhat pugnacious whimbrel

We stayed in the Melville room at the Sylvia Beach Hotel. Shelley, the resident cat, agreed to keep us company one evening:

Perhaps she found our company less than riveting

I never even try to resist signage:

Tempting, but we stuck to the 101 route and thus ended up back in Seattle.

Self-captioning

Our route involves some ferry travel, and the WSDOT doesn't assume parents are too bright.

The weather was pretty uniformly gorgeous and Poseidon was, as always, a charming host.

Reflecty sands

Does this ocean make me look taller?

Mandatory sunset shot

Public art, Newport Edition

Of course, Washington State is pretty nice too.

Black Klansman and Lucy Carmichael

Scott and I went to see Black Klansman last night. It was more wrenching than either of us expected. Some years back I read Hari Kunzru's White Tears without being familiar with the expression and was underwhelmed by that book. But it led to my knowing the term and, I've just realized on looking it up again, misunderstanding it. Because my tears aren't that I don't believe in racial injustice; it's that I don't seem capable of doing anything about it except crying. In my mind "white tears" has come to be shorthand for liberals like me who feel bad but do nothing. There is, undoubtedly an expression for that; perhaps someone can share it with me here. But more, I wish someone would give me some concrete actions that I can take that will make things better. Because this current world is just wrong.

 But I've digressed. No, having been shaken by the movie (or, more precisely, by the footage from Charlottesville that ends the film which, by great effort, I had managed to avoid seeing (see also, white privilege)) I came home to distract myself by reading Lucy Carmichael by Margaret Kennedy, a book published in 1951. To my dismay, it was suddenly too topical, with a quote from, I think, William Wordsworth:

By superior energy, by more strict
Affiance in each other, firmer faith
In their unhallowed principles, the Bad
Have fairly earned a victory o'er the weak,
The vacillating, inconsistent Good.

Because that's us, the weak, vacillating, inconsistent Good (or, if not "good" then at least less vile than what seems to be winning these days).

And seeming relevant, at least at 1:00 a.m. and  with an echo of "when they go low," Lucy quotes Ephesians IV:

That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every word of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking truth in love, may grow up into him as all things, which is the head, even Christ.

I'm like Kirk in "Arena," surrounded by potassium nitrate, diamonds, and bamboo; if I were just bright enough to figure out how to use what I've been given, I could maybe do something. Being more like McCoy than Kirk (or Spock), I'm stumped. 

Snapshots of late summer chez Aurora

One of the fresher sunflowers in the front forty

It's remarkable to me how time-consuming it is to post a handful of photos taken with the iPad. There *must* be a quick and  easy way to transfer images to blogger but, alas, I have yet to figure out what that might be. Is there some sort of power struggle between Google and Apple of which I am unaware? Very likely there is.

But the blahdeblahblah faithful need not be aware of any of that. No, for the reader these photos just appeared instantly, with the sun still warm upon them.

Every day is Earth Day chez Aurora (or we just have a lot of laundry).

The grape harvest will be smaller this year: jamly or pie? That is the question.

On the other hand, it's a good year for the fall crocuses. (Note also more depleted head of a sunflower, removed from the front forty to discourage squirrels from developing more of an interest in the crops.)

Morning glory and green bean tangle in the front forty

Toujours Mme Gradka