NPs 4: Day 7 (June 4)

The final day.

Today we were on the beach first thing in the morning, fueled by starbucks, and ready to capture haystack rock at sunrise. I am happy to finally have "my own" shot of this popular destination.

As the warm morning light disappeared, I switched to my Lensbaby for some abstract-style waves.

And here is one last image from the Oregon Coast!

Thank you so much for taking a look. One more NPS down, many more to go. Where will the next National Park vacation be?

NPS 4: Day 6 (June 3)

Is there anything more magnificent than Bandon at sunset? Yes... Bandon at Sunrise!!! We were there right as the sun welcomed the waves for the new day. The bummer part about sunrise shots in June is that sunrise is (yawn) early. I spent my foggy-brain efforts trying to get some interesting long-exposure, dreamy water movement...

As I progressed down the beach, I noticed a group of men digging in the sand... clam digging, I suppose? One guy was riding around between everyone on a bike; seemed like a nice way to start the day. I wish my regular morning routine involved riding in the wind of the sea.

While the man visited with the other guys, his bicycle perched perfectly for a reflective portrait in front of face rock.

We kept heading north along 101 and found made a stop at the Sea Lion Caves near Florence. At first, I considered it a touristy indulgence. I mean, any place that charges admission & sells popcorn should be considered a tourist trap, right? But, after seeing the 2,000 sea lions basking on the sunny rocks, I found myself clicking away with fury. I think I dropped over 200 frames in this place, and it was hard to narrow it down to just a few ...

Along the way we spotted the Heceda Lighthouse... isn't it so cool? We plan on heading back one day, making the lighthouse trail tops on our destination list!

Hmm, this one might be out of order... too many places in one day! We briefly drove through a sand dune park, and briefly took a few, brief pictures.

Ok, so, somewhere in our NPS 4 brains, this plan made sense: Leave Newport, Oregon, at sunset and drive to Cannon Beach, Oregon. Its only 2.5 hours away... we can be there before midnight! It will be dawn at 5pm, so we'll sleep in the car! No seriously, what were we thinking? Oh, well, these are the times that create the best memories.

The drive north was pretty much a straight shot, no stop, no nonsense kind of drive, with one exception. We could not pass up the very last bit of light dipping below the horizon and pulled over for few quick frames. I liked the shape of the rock; to me, it looks the silhouette of a wolf howling at the crescent moon.

Aww, sunset.

NPS 4: Day 5 (June 2)

Well hello there, blog. Long time no... post.

I guess it takes the threat of Snowmageddon to get me to actually wrap up my pictures from NPS 4 ;) There are still a few more days of the trip to post (hopefully today even??), but we were winding down at this point.

The day before we only made it from Crescent City to Brookings, and well, today was another one of those days. We made it from Brookings to... Bandon! We stopped along the way at the Hughes House in Port Orford, Oregon. This charming home seemed like the perfect Lensbaby subject!

And I took a few pictures of some wild irises growing near the home.... here is the unedited version of the purple iris:

And, ta-daaaa, here is the edited version. (btw, I owe some creative credit to DMA for his editing assistance for this one.)

And here is the white one, ala lens baby.

And finally, we reached our final destination... Bandon. It was my first visit there, and all I can say is ... Wow. Seastacks and sunset, could there be a more magnificent combination?

This wraps up Day 5 for me! Thanks for taking a look!