Global Warming?? My Patootie!!

I can't believe the weather we've had this Spring. We pretty much know by the end of February that we're not going to get any more snow, but not this year. This past weekend the Northwest had a freaky snowstorm pass through. This is almost the end of April. What the heck is going on?

Danny Noriega? Is that you??

On our weekend trip (previous post) I saw a guy who I think looks a lot like Danny Noriega, a former top 20 contestant on American Idol. What do you think? Edited to add: No, I'm not trying to say this IS danny. I know it's not. I'm only posting this for the "hmm, he kinda looks like Danny Noriega" entertainment factor.

Road Trip!!

On a whim, we decided to go to the coast for the weekend. We have been having LOUSY weather all year and finally the weatherman said Friday and Saturday would be nice, even at the coast. So early Saturday morning we headed to Pacific City, Oregon. If you can even see the names on that map to the left, it's about one-fourth of the way down. Anyway, boy did we get lucky on the weather!! It was absolutely gorgeous GORGEOUS!! We had only talked about going for the day, but the weather was so wonderful that we ended up spending the night. (Thank goodness for that "emergency" kit we keep in the car. We've done these spur-of-the-moment trips before, so we decided to stow away a bag with toiletries and a change of undies. It came in handy!)

Pacific City has this giant sand mountain that you can climb -- if you don't have a heart attack first. It's very steep and difficult to climb. You can see the hill in the picture below. Anyway, we climbed it and were treated to a spectacular view from the back side of the hill. As you can see in the pictures, the sky and the water were a spectacular color of blue. There was not a cloud in the sky that day, and it was unseasonably warm. We loved it.

Along the shorter section of hill - the part that sticks out into the water, there are tidepools. There are lots and lots of starfish, anenomes, and sea urchins clinging to the sides of the rocks. There are also little pools containing fish. In the first picture, it looks like we're looking through an aquarium glass, but it is actually one of the little pools of water. Wow. Here are some pictures. Enjoy. You can click on any of them to make them bigger.