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One thing about living near water, whether it's the inland seas or the wild western coast, is that there are lots of lighthouses. All of them are picturesque, and all of them have been photographed ad infinitum. I will add to the catalog with my contribution of the lighthouses of the Columbia River estuary, where many a salty dog ran afoul of the treacherous waters off Cape Disappointment. |
| Looking out over the ocean from these lighthouses, we thought we saw the wake from a large ship. We watched it for a while, and instead of gradually widening and dissipating, it kept its path and intensity. Nope, no ship here. It was the wake of the mighty Columbia River flowing miles out to sea in a constant, brownish flow. It is a fabulous river anywhere you choose to see it along its length. |  |
| Old-growth forest doesn't necessarily mean huge trees, unlike the Sequoia forests in Northern California. Certainly there were incredible giants, especially among the Western Red Cedar, but these are mostly gone from the readily-accessible areas (and likely the less-accessible too). There are some remains of these old, giant trees ... of which this was probably just a small fry. Lightning opened up the tree, making it irresistable to us "kids" walking by on the trail near Crescent Lake. There are ancient trees still standing, but many of them are deceptively small in girth, although they are often very tall. |  |
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Last fall, we hiked with a group of people up to the old Tubalcain Mine in the Olympic Mountains. We drove and drove over increasingly narrow, dusty, winding, bumpy roads higher and higher to the trail head. The warm fall day down at sea level turned to a crisp, 37-degree fall day up at 5,000 feet (one of our fellow hikers had a thermometer and altimeter on his watch). We hiked a little ways beyond the mine shaft opening to a picnic spot on the trail. Mmmm, a sandwich and a cold beer in 37 degrees. It almost beats the time we were walking down the street in Boston clutching ice cream cones in our mittened hands! The Tubalcain trail is lined with wild rhododendrons. Some day when we've forgotten the wild drive to the trail head, we'll go back in the spring to see them all in bloom. There are also airplane parts along the trail and up on the mountainside from an old plane crash. |
Madrone Ridge Marketing
Last updated July 15, 2001.