Long Beach part 2 - Lighthouses, Pelicans, and more!

All the pictures, click here...

Here are the best of my pictures of the two Lighthouses and other various shots.  These lighthouses mark the Colombia entrance; both of them are on the north side...one at Cape Dissapointment, the other is a little further North and "north head."  Another thing we found was surfing...yes, surfing...and the beach they were surfing on?  Waikiki beach of course...just like Hawaii, only different.  It was VERY cold.  Make sure you see All the pictures, click here...

Long Beach part 1

Julie and I had a wonderful opportunity to follow up a very difficult time in our lives with some Rest down at Long Beach.  Of course, I brought my camera along and managed to snap a few shots.  I've divided them up a bit...here are pictures from the first couple of days when we rarely left the house...(I read 5 books in 8 days).  So, given that fact, these pics are mostly sunsets from the first 3 nights.  Make sure to check them all out here.

Family Video...

Family Video from Mike Weston on Vimeo.

Bush Point - Fishin' for Humpies

Straight to the Pictures: This was my first week ever of fishing for Humpies; also known as "Pink Salmon."  The run comes every other year and our locale was ideal for catching them.  Pink Buzz Bombs was the lure of choice...and we "killed it" all week long.  We had two boats but never felt a need to put them in the water as fishing from the dock we had private access to netted us all the fish we could catch (and more).  My best stretch of fishing was either Friday, when I landed 16 salmon (only kept 4), or Monday, the morning we left, when I landed 3 salmon in 3 casts.  As you can see, almost all of the pictures are either sunsets or fishing...and that's pretty much all we did.  Make sure you click here to see the full album...

First Mountain Hike: Lord of the Flies

About two weeks ago Julie and I made it out for our first "mountain" hike of the summer.  It was the Friday of our "heat wave" week and little did we know...

Our hike was beautiful...but we were up against something that neither of us had ever experienced before...flies...tons of flies.  We were caught in the middle; do we 1) go with shorts and t-shirts and deal with fly bites but stay cool, or do we 2) put on the zip on pants and a long sleeved shirt, die from heat, and endure the bites?  Really...I'm not exaggerating.  Usually when you're hiking, if you stay moving, the bugs leave you alone.  Not so...even while we were hiking at a very fast clip, the flies still swarmed us.  By the time we were done, Julie counted over 20 fly bites...on her right arm!  Me?  Well, maybe it's all my hair or I didn't smell as good; I didn't find a single bite anywhere on my body.  Hmmm.  Enough about flies.

The hike was hot, but beautiful.  We've done this hike before and it never disappoints.  Enjoy the pics!

Bellingham Sunset

In case you missed it, about a week and a half ago we were treated to an amazing color display.  I was riding my scooter home about an hour before sunset and noticed that there was a "high potential" for a good one.  There were some patchy low clouds, but a gap at the horizon line.  I got home, grabbed my camera and headed down to Marine Park in Fairhaven.  True enough, it was a gorgeous night.  At one point, it even started to lightly rain and there was a sunset in front of me and a rainbow behind; (the lighting wasn't good enough for the rainbow).  Make sure to chcck out the scrolling slide show at the bottom.

Cape Alava, day 4 (of 4)

Finally, getting around to day 4.  Day 4 didn't have a whole lot to write about.  Essentially, we woke up, ate breakfast, took in the morning view (with the mist/fog), packed camp and hiked out.  Still, it was a beautiful morning, a nice hike out and a good drive home (complete with a much anticipated Lavendar Latte just past Sequim).  Enjoy all the pictures by clicking here.

Cape Alava, day 3 (of 4) - Tidepools

Woke up (amazing how each day starts with the same activity...waking up), ate breakfast set about our day.  It's funny when you camp on a beach...it makes the decisions for day hiking much easier.  Let's see, here, yesterday we went South, how about today we go, er, uh North?  Yes?  North it is!  Little did we know that we'd hit the area "just right" (at low tide) and have a blast exploring all of the tidepools.


My higlight was arriving at a little cove; Dave, Kath and Julie all took a brief rest while I set out to explore the point, solo.  I noodled around all of the tidepools for awhile and finally came around to the point and was shocked to see it open up with a HUGE bed of muscles.  They were everywhere!  The muscles were most plentiful where the waves were the largest.  It was really cool to see!

After our little day-hike, we lit another fire; this one the biggest yet.  Kathryn really wanted to see if she could start a fire on her own so after Julie and Dave got the "one-match" fire going, Kath lit one of her own.  Eventually, the two fires melded into one.

We were treated to another beautiful sunset as the sun dipped below the clouds/fog.  Another great day.

Click here for all the day 3 pictures.

Cape Alava, day 2 (of 4) - Petroglyphs

Day 2 was a lazy morning; I was the first one out of the tent but surprisingly slept until about 8:00ish. I had a chance to explore the island a bit and then was met by Julie. We had fun tipping rocks, looking at hundreds of thousands of shore crabs, and smelling a humpback whale carcass...yum yum.

After a late breakfast we packed up and head about 2 miles south to the petroglyphs. The sun came out and the hike along the shore was fantastic...as you can see, as well, the petroglyphs were also amazing. The highlight of the day for me was finding the "ship" petroglyph; one that we had read about but hadn't seen yet. Honestly, it didn't take much hunting...I just got lucky to walk a few feet and find it.

At any rate, we explored the petroglyphs, chilled out watching the waves (and eating our lunch munchies) and really, just enjoyed creation.

We hiked back in the early evening and had an amazing night; highlighted by a bigger campfire on the beach, an amazing sunset, and a glorious night complete with star-gazing. Obviously, being that far out on the coast, you can guess how many stars we saw...and even the milky way galaxy was visible. A great day to be sure.








 
(Was supposed to be a "one match" fire but I think it was a "two match" fire instead)