Oregon 2013:Tidal Pool

 My brother lives in Oregon.  I do not.  I live in the middle of this great country of ours and Oregon is a very long way away.  It takes three days to drive there, so we flew, thanks to my dad who is so glad I'm alive after last year that he paid out lots of money so my family (except Jim, who stayed home to make sure we had some money), could go there and see him and my other brother who lives even farther away in the middle of this country.  

I haven't flown since I went on my honeymoon.  I found flying boring then, and this time the hop from Denver to Eugene got rather long and I wished I had a window seat.  

I was hoping for good weather, cool weather, nothing like the 90 degrees days we were having at home, and I got my wish.  It was plumb cold most of the time.  

We spent one day in the Yaquina Bay area near Newport on the coast.  The most fascinating part of the whole trip was this visit to the tidal pools at the lighthouse.  We spent the morning at low tide, hopping around the pools to look at all the flora and fauna living there, exposed to all when the tide is low.  We saw things I only see in pictures, or at the zoo.

The saddest part of the whole trip was when I dropped my camera into a tidal pool while jumping over a particularly large spot.  That was the end of my taking photos there, except with my phone, which takes pictures as if you are looking through the wrong end of a telescope and emailing them to oneself takes eons if you have 150 of them like I do.  

So, while it might be fun to say I dropped my camera into the Pacific Ocean, it means that my photos of this vacation are mostly someone else's.  Or else hardly won from my phone.  

I hope these photos give you a glimpse of what I enjoyed. 

Agate State Recreation Area

Tidal Pools

Lighthouse.

We saw all these things except the barnacle.

Birds galore, but we were too far away to see them unless zoomed in.  There were far away on the rocks.

Same with the eagle.

However these seagulls were parading their stuff.  And they were a lot larger than I expected.  

Low tide.

Looking down from the top.  It was a  long way down.

Star fish, two kinds.

Mussels

 Starfish and Sea Cucumbers

 Green Anemone

Purple Anemones

 Feathers on well tumbled lava rocks, of which the beach is covered.