Down on the Neawanna
July 18, 2017

What a treat to be welcomed with such open arms!  Jim & Shannon not only hosted us for a stay at their paradise at Seaside, they also had a hookup for that trailer we’re hauling around the countryside.

My niece by birth, Shannon’s specialness extends to her immediate family - Jim & Brianna.  I am always in awe of the beauty of their home that Jim built and Shannon decorated, and the grounds that they have landscaped to a fare-thee-well.

For a portion of our time with them, we were happy to have my other niece, Mary, and her husband Dion come to see the old auntie.  Adding to the revelry were the younger set: Brianna and Jim's niece Robbi.  We feel cherished to be with them all, and to have time with Jim's parents, Marion and Emma, next door - rounding out our generation.

The property perches above the Neawanna, as picturesque a creek as you could ever ask for, with green tree-shaded lawns spreading outward.

A good bit of work goes into keeping their lush homestead looking great.  One of Shannon's jobs is mowing the lawns.

Clearly, the wildlife is fond of the area, too; large herds of elk make it their home.  They wade in the creek munching the waterside vegetation, lounge on the lawns and graze their way slowly through the fields.

I took these photos right from the back deck of the house.  Not too shabby for a back yard lounge, eh what.

At one point when I heard a baby continuously crying out in the field, I ran to see what was up.  Just then, the baby ran down the slope toward his mama that had heard his need and was running toward him.  As they met, mama looked over at me with a glare that plainly said she thought I was the cause of her youngster’s distress.  Fortunately for me, baby started nursing or I have a feeling I would have been sprinting for cover.

Our activities ranged from rail riding to beachcombing.  Jim even took Chris out for a day of fishing in his impressive “small” craft - a 26-foot double-hulled beauty.  What a haul they returned with - sea bass, ling cod and crabs - which quickly turned into fish tacos and crab dip, plus much more!

The crabs never made it into the house before they were converted into edible form.

 Rail riding . . .

Did I want to go rail riding, Shannon asked.  Well sure, why not - whatever it is - and it turned out to be one of my more unique experiences.  Truthfully, none of us had a very good idea of what to expect from the excursion; although it was not up to Shannon’s expectations, the three of us had a blast nevertheless. 

We managed to miss the orientation/safety talk, but pulled through in one piece despite the omission.  We strapped ourselves into a four-seat pedal-powered car and set off down the track along with others kooky enough to try it out.

I didn't think it was overly strenuous until Chris stopped pedaling; I hadn't realized he was our primary locomotion until then.  I appointed myself brake man to insure that we didn’t hit the car in front of us whenever they slowed.

We rolled right on down the track for seven miles, over trestles reaching across rivers, past vehicles stopped on roads for our crossing, through woods and fields and had a good ol’ time.  The turnaround was pretty ingenious: we were offloaded while the hard-working young staffers rolled the cars on platforms that allowed them to reverse direction.

We strategically placed Chris in the front of the car so he couldn't see when we were not pedaling.  I have a suspicion he noticed anyway.

Crossing on trestles felt a bit vulnerable with nothing but that little seat belt holding you in.  Evidently, I was too afraid to photograph the dropoffs.  This bridge was of 1901 vintage.

The turn-around mechanism was very clever.

Shannon's stylin' again.

Puffins and such . . .

While we were out and about at Tillamook, we stopped off to reconnoiter at Haystack Rock, an impressive monolith rising out of the ocean.

We had the opportunity to stop at Cannon Beach (the sand squeaks when you walk on it!) to try to see puffins that sometimes nest there, but it seemed we might have been a little late in the season.  I insisted later that Chris not go out on the boat and see a life bird without me, but he went right ahead and got south polar skua out there - very unfair if you ask me, but no way was I risking certain motion sickness to do it.

Ouch!

I even got pretty queasy coming up the coast highway, 101, to get to Seaside.  We had an unhappy-making incident on that drive, but we were happy that its outcome was not worse.  There we were tooling along that very winding road when we heard a distinct pop.  Not much room to pull off, but we managed to get onto the narrow shoulder to see what might be amiss.  Our close inspection showed nothing worrisome, so we finished up the drive to the kids’ place.  That was where it was discovered there was a large piece popped right out of the trailer tire’s sidewall!

Not at all sure why we didn’t spot it on the road nor why the tire didn’t blow out, but we are most grateful that it worked out the way it did.  Trying to change the trailer tire in that spot would have been difficult; our angels were at work in that.

Terrible Tillie . . .

A  lighthouse off Tillamook Head more than earned its nickname of Terrible Tillie.  Its precarious perch atop a pile of rocks and surrounded by open water caused a number of deaths right from the beginning of construction in 1880 and throughout its storm-ridden life until it was decommissioned in 1957.  The extreme difficulty of building and maintaining Tillamook Rock lighthouse amid frequent ocean storms caused extensive damage to the structure and its light as well as deaths and injuries to seamen and lighthouse keepers.

In an odd twist, subsequent private owners converted Tillie into a columbarium, which turned out to be a fairly unsuccessful venture.  Thirty urns of deceased folks' ashes were placed there before the facility's license was revoked and never renewed.

The only access now is by helicopter; even the owners are not allowed on the rock during shorebird nesting season.

Like some other things - fungi and reptiles, to name some - I clearly will never tire of seashore photos.

Shenanigans . . .

To assuage my disappointment that Chris didn't get to tour the Tillamook cheese factory (I had been there previously, but now it's closed for renovations), Shannon suggested a stop at The Green Heron, a shop & restaurant with something for everybody.

Oh boy, a piano!  I managed to gather quite an unusual audience for Chris' concert . . .

and while we were horsing around, Shannon got a little bugged.  She was green with envy but shortly hopped back to her old self . . .

The peninsula . . .

Bri and Robbi joined us for hikes out at Leadbetter Point on the North Beach Peninsula and explorations around Willapa Bay.  That was totally interesting to me (but what isn’t, especially around bodies of water?) because Shannon had loaned us a trilogy written about early colonists there and in Aurora, so it was fascinating to see some of the areas they pioneered.

We crossed the mighty Columbia River via the bridge at Astoria.

I am pretty unschooled when it comes to sea-going activities.  I learned a bit from the books and otherwise about oyster beds out there in that shallow bay.  As one hike took us through brush-choked and treed landscape, always sandy underfoot . . .

 . . . a snake crossed our path . . .

 . . . and out to beaches with snowy plover nesting closures . . .

 . . . and my final ocean fix of the summer . . .

. . . we saw salt marsh sections and markers in the water for something or other, leaving with far more questions than answers.

Shellfish farms - who knew there was such a thing???

We all wondered just what uses have been devised for the mountains of oyster shells.

Bridal doin’s, hanging out . . .

Bri’s upcoming duties as a wedding attendant kept the girls busy for a spell as they prepared shower decorations.

And then there were barbecue duties shared by the clan, plus some beverage consumption happenings, sharing of family photos plus lots and lots of laughing.

We hopefully took off a few calories after the barbecue with a walk to the beach.

I declined to participate in golf drives across the creek lest I hit an elk on the noggin, and besides, I didn't want to be laughed at, which surely would have been the result, but Jim and Chris knocked a few over there.

Nor overly sure about that back swing, Jim.

Marion’s train . . .

Marion’s (aka Grandpa) train layout in progress is scarcely to be believed - a real delight to behold.  It’s a mouth-hanging-open marvel.  This is no meticulous put-storebought-pieces-together kind of thing.  Marion has actually built every single tiny piece of the layout.  He made the bitsy ties to support the track and hand placed each and every one.  He built every single car himself from scratch and every single other thing on there, including the sawmill and its workings.  I could go on and on, but the precision almost needs to be seen to be believed.  The patience it would take for an undertaking like that is beyond my ken.

Birds . . .

The varied environments allowed us to add some avian species to the trip list in addition to the skua, a life bird that Chris unfairly got without me while he was out on the boat.

Other new identifications included fox sparrow, American goldfinch, brown pelican, pygmy nuthatch and tree swallow.