Sunday, October 26, 2008

************* !!!!! SHE'S ARRIVED !!!!! ****************

KAYLE LILY KYSER was born on October 24, 2008 at 8:40 am. She weighed in a 7# 1oz and 21 inches long. She looks just like Kate! Kate did so well. she was in labor for only 8.5 hours and had Kayle natural without any drugs.




Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Seattle and Oregon coast vacation Sept 14-26

We took a road trip up to Seattle and then returned down the Oregon coast. Boy, I thought the California coast was beautiful!! It has nothing on the Oregon coast. We drove up Rt 5 north to Seattle and stayed at Marriott's with Ken's points. Then, returned driving 101 down the coast camping along the way. It was such a great relaxing trip. We took our bikes and biked on a path about 10-12 miles on the stop in Medford Oregon on the way up. There was a great trail in Seattle that went on forever. We biked on that trail for 25 miles...


Mt Shasta on our way up Rt 5.
Here is the trail we took while staying in Medford, OR. There was berry bushes everywhere.

SEATTLE WASHINGTON BIKE PATH - We biked 25 miles along a really nice path that the university students use as well as downtown commuters use to get to work. It went along the lake, then along the university, then into and out of the woods .... and into and out of small towns. It was a great ride.There was a park (the deli market was just behind me while taking this pic) next to a small deli market along the bike path. We got some lunch and took a break.
PIKE's MARKET - This market in downtown Seattle was hoppin'. This is the market where they throw the fish to each other. The fruits and veggies looked absolutely wonderful. We did have necterines for lunch.Flowers, flowers ... and more flowers .....Fish, fish everywhere....This is one of the guys that throws the fish when someone orders.Our hotel was on Lake Union. These float planes gave tours everyday.

HEADING TOWARDS THE OREGON COAST...
A forest full of sequoia trees...
As we were driving, we came through this small community along the highway in the woods. Lo and behold there was a 10-12 point elk eating apples underneath an apple tree in someone's front yard.
HARRIS BEACH - If you look closely, there is a hole in the rock which the tide pushes through and expands onto a section of the beach. below is a video of this. It was soooo cool. We have never seen anything like this before.


Here we are in front of the hole in the rocks from the pics above.






More of the the coast....
There were quite a few people playing at the dunes.

There are several lighthouses along the coast. This one had the light on. We tried to get a picture when the light came around ...



Everywhere we went there were berries, berries and more berries. Needless to say we did quite a lot of snacking!


We came upon a section of the coast where there was an inlet. According to the information, depending upon the weather the water comes into this inlet and just 'crashes' on the rocks.


As we travelled south down the Oregon coast, much of the coastline had ranches with cows and cattle on our left and the ocean on our right.

We ran into the Tillamook Cheese factory. Ken got us kicked out because he wouldn't leave the sample counter.

The next three pictures is one of the views we woke up to while camping along the coast.



The Oregon coast is so beautiful.The coastline .... as far as you can see. Little did we know when we took this picture that we would be driving up into those mountains in the distance.



This refurbished 'woody' was parked in front of a local real estate office. How great would it be driving around in this looking at property???

If you look closely to the left of the rocks, there is a lighthouse on a huge rock.
Look at this HUUUGE boulder sticking out of the water... How would you like this view each morning?

This is the same boulder just down the beach a bit....
The ocean in Seaside, OR - beach as far as you can see.
Columbia River - you see the actual river on the left side and the ocean on the right side.




GLASS BEACH
- In Ft Bragg, CA back in 1949 the coastline became a city dump and they dumped all kinds of trash (cars, glass, trash etc) over the cliff. This was stopped in 1967. The surf tossed and tumbled all the glass around and smoothed, polished shards remained. So many people have come and taken out buckets full that now hardly anything remains. A lady we met there told us that just two years ago the glass was so thick that they made 'snow angels' in it. She couldn't believe that hardly anything remained.



Berries were all along the pathway to the beach.
Starfish, starfish everywhere.....

These two 'hippies' (didn't think hippies even existed anymore) were sitting on the beach making these weird things with all the beach 'leftover wash-ups'. Yes, of course, they asked us for money!