Coastal Adventure

Hampton Park - Willamina

Radio personality Paul Harvey famously prefaced his follow up remarks with, "And now for the rest of the story".  This post is about the "the rest of the story", as in what happened after Day One - in the last post back in June. Well, on the second day things fell completely apart, and we drove home the next day.  Many close family and friends know our aging dog Buster has become a real problem with traveling.  He has developed an anxiety when riding in the van, whining, and carrying on to the point of tremors and panting. Since the disastrous end to that planned 15 day trip to Eastern Oregon we have stayed put in Salem. 

For this trip we planned to meet with friends on the coast for a few days, and as a solution for the Buster problem we arranged to for a dog sitter so we could travel in peace.  I made reservations for two nights at Tillicum Beach Campground and we were all set.  Then our dog sitter came down sick, and so we revised our plan with the idea of leaving early, making short drives with lots of stops to walk Buster and look for birds, and take 3 days to drive the 100 miles to Tillicum Beach south of Waldport. 

On the first day we made our first stop 19 miles away at Balston County Park.  See our bird list here.  The next stop was Huddleston Fish Pond in Hampton Park in Willamina, a mere 11 miles.  Check out our bird list here.  After lunch in the park we taveled on to Fort Yamhill for a third stop and walk.  At this point Buster elected to rest in the van, age related arthritis limits his milage nowadays. Jeanette and I made a loop of the grounds with the resulting bird list here.  Our intended stop for the night was to be Spirit Mountain Casino, but hot temps in the 80's caused us to change our plans and drive on to the coast with our over night stop at Neskowin State Park. This is our go to over night place on the coast with the benefit of dinning next door at the Hawk Creek Cafe.

Day two we traveled down Highway 101 fifteen miles to Lincoln City where we made Holmes Road Park our first stop. We were especially pleased to discover a pair of Red Crossbills because they have been very scarce so far this season.  See our bird list here.

   Red Crossbill male

Our next stop was only a mile or so away at Friends of Wildwoods Open Space.  A delightful woodsy trail gave us this bird list here, as well as an unexpected deer encounter.

A search for a lunch stop in the Sunday crowded corridor of Lincoln City took us to Moe's on Siletz Bay. Next stop for some birding was on around Siletz Bay to the Salishan Nature Trail. See the checklist here.  The rest of the afternoon was spent parked in the shade, working on bird lists and photos, and resting.  A Douglas Squirrel busy harvesting a pine cone was another nature find.

For our evening parking we selected Boiler Bay State Wayside, another standby on our coastal boondocking sites. 

Rain greeted us this morning.  When Buster got up at 5:00 to do his morning business, he took one look out the door and went back to bed.  Rain is scheduled to last until 10:00, so I have taken the time to produce a blog post.  Already at 8:00 it is clearing.  Our destination for the day is Tillicum Beach a mere 34 miles away.