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May 28 - 30
Today was overcast and gloomy. In fact, it rained off and on (lightly) all day.
So, we decided to head for Newport and spend the morning at the Oregon Aquarium, which is fairly new. Bill had checked earlier and it was tripod friendly. Unfortunately, this was a rainy Saturday over Memorial Day weekend and everyone staying within 100 miles of Newport was also at the aquarium. Very crowded.
The two photos above of sea anemones were taken at the Aquarium. I tried some other shots, but the light was too low and the movements were too fast for the speed of film I was using today - they all blurred too much. The aquarium has some fantastic sea horses that I kept trying for...
Bill was getting tired. He was so tired that he walked off and left his waist pack of film sitting on a table at the Aquarium. I had spotted it and picked it up, planning to tease him about it when he remembered it. Several miles down the road, he stopped to get out and walk around a while to clear the cobwebs. I told him I realized he was tired and he wanted to know how I knew. Because he left this (and I pulled the pack out of hiding) at the Aquarium. His face just fell. He hadn’t even realized it.
So we headed back south, stopping at a couple of locations along the way. Julie kept looking for baby seals on the beach and asked several locals (including the people at the Aquarium) where some could be found. We stopped at most of them over these few days, but each time found a carpet of tourists. No seals.
One of the places we stopped at on the way back to Florence was Cape Perpetua, which is a federal area. It’s got a lot of really rugged coastline, areas with names like the Devil’s Churn.
We hiked down to the beach level and stood there for over an hour in the drizzle watching these huge waves come crashing across the rocks. The spray would shoot 50 feet or more into the air. Lousy for pictures, but very good for the soul.
Then back to Florence to clean up a little for our farewell dinner, which was very nice. Then back to Bill’s room to share slides and talk some more before packing up.