Officer Crocodile Dundee

Shelter Cove, California 

You get a very strange feeling driving though the Redwoods. It's very dark down there at the trunk level.



But.....wait....Officers in Independence, Missouri, responded to a call on a Saturday evening about a large alligator lurking on the embankment of a pond. An officer called a state conservation agent, who advised him to shoot the alligator because there was little that conservation officials could do at that time. As instructed, an officer shot the alligator, not once but twice, but both times the bullets bounced off -- because the alligator was made of cement.The property owner told police later that he placed the ornamental gator by the pond to keep children away.

Policemen can be cruel to their own. The Officer involved is almost certain to be tagged with a humorous but non-flattering nickname. Maybe "Gators Fear Me" or "Crocodile Dundee".

We spent the day cruising the redwoods and the coastal mountain back roads. We had hoped to see some tide pools after our long mountain drive to Shelter Cove. None of our pictures of the coastal tide pools or redwoods were very good due to the rain and fog. .

We did get some good flower pictures. They grow well in the dank, moist climate that redwoods prefer.

My humanities professor call this type of image "Chiaroscuro"  which sounds a lot like something you need to make Cuban Spanish bean soup.

 

We see many medical marijuana stores in this area, even in the smallest towns. I look into the laws and find that I need a California drivers license to assuage my anxiety or treat Mrs. Phred's back pains.

I think all the hippies from the 1967 Summer of Love must have moved to this area. We see many older ladies with long braided gray hair. They seem happy and pleasant. Not overweight. The men have strange beards, long hair and odd pants. I want to live here with my people, but Mrs. Phred wants more from life....

 Happy Trails....

Along the Pacific Coast

Sarasota, Florida

Sometimes you feel like a Hobbit. Then you hear a bustle in a hedgerow. It's just a spring clean for the May Queen. This is a medium-sized redwood in the Ladybird Johnson grove. The human figure is 6 feet in height and approximately the same in girth.

These flowers grow in the dark redwood "groves". Sometimes they catch a sunbeam.

The California coast has lots of rocks.

In Oregon, driftwood takes on strange shapes.


This is a "Stellar's" Jay. Stellar also has some seals named after him.

We went out of our way to find some of Oregon's tidal pools.

It was worth the search.

The waves carve strange fin shapes facing the Pacific.

These birds like the safety of a rock face. The white stuff is bird dukey. (Sweetheart, I'd like to kiss you but your breath smells like dukey.)

I'm picking way too many pictures for Calendar candidates.

A Good Run

Sarasota, Florida

We'll be here six months until March 31. In April I'd like to fly to London and then take fast trains, ferries and planes to Ireland, Paris, Rome and Istanbul. Maybe we'll do New England and Eastern Canada this next summer?

Our last six months were pretty much ok. We spent the first month of our vacation in Spain and then drove the RV around the US for five months though New Orleans, Abbeville, Las Cruces, Silver City, Mono Lake, Death Valley, Yosemite, Las Vegas, the High Sierras, the Redwoods, the Oregon Coast, Hell's Canyon, Winslow Arizon, Jackson Hole and other pretty places.
We did some whitewater rafting and I caught tasty fish in Oregon.
The Sun and Fun RV park is fairly dead right now. We find it hard to get a doubles match of tennis going in the morning or evening before it gets too hot.

Sometimes we play round robin two on one side and one on the other. In a pinch, Mrs. Phred and I can play singles.
They are refinishing the pool here. It should be ready by November 1st. Meanwhile, the hot tubs are functional but the tiki bar doesn't open before 4 PM.

My Life Passed in Front of My Eyes

Cape Perpetua, Oregon

We've been off the net the last couple of days, camping in the Cape Perpetua State Park. I like to get up at 4 am and play with the computer until Mrs. Phred wakes up around eight.

The days are cold and foggy near the coast. Inland they are having a serious heatwave.

So this morning I drank some coffee, read a SF book called "Redshift" for about an hour, then went back to bed at five. I couldn't sleep so I spent the next three hours remembering my life.

This is a geological formation on the Oregon Coast called "The Devil's Punchbowl".

The only thing I would change is the party I went to when I was 16. It was sponsored by the grocery store where I worked as a "bag boy". I drank too much beer and decided to go swimming nude. I couldn't find where I had left my clothing so I had to ride my motorcycle home 20 miles without any covering. It was kind of like one of those dreams where you appear naked in public, but it was real life. In retrospect, I wouldn't do that again. My father was disappointed with me, but had the wisdom to wait until the next morning to offer his fatherly advice...aside from that one incident, I wouldn't change a thing.

We stopped briefly in Newport, Oregon. They have a world class aquarium there, but we've seen it twice and we just went to the New Orleans aquarium...so we skipped it. They do have a nice bridge.

The fog cleared long enough yesterday to get this shot of Cape Perpetua yesterday.

Cape Foulweather was named by Captain Cook in March 1787. He had a bright young navigator on board by the name of William Bligh. Captain Bligh, G. Gordon Liddy and Chuck Yeager are my three personal all-time heroes. I wrote an article about William Bligh which was published by the BBC. It's always a thrill to find a place where the great navigator and Captain visited. He brought breadfruit to the Indies. His family loved him.

As I review my pictures of the last three days, I see a lot of tide pools and exploding waves. Maybe I need to vary my focus.

We're parked south of Lincoln City on the Siletz River about two miles from the coast. You can catch King Salmon here, rent boats or charter a serious fishing trip. Coho Salmon for dinner again tonight. The RV park has a nice feel. We have a river view, cable TV, electricity and water. Life is good.


Just north of here, near Tillamook, is the "Terrible Tilly" lighthouse, which has been turned into a columbarium. For a time, you could have your remains placed her for a fee of $1,000 (in the derrick room) or $5,000 (in the lantern room). However the "Eternity at Sea" license was revoked for poor record keeping in 2005. My plan to have Mrs. Phred pack my remains in salt, wrap me in a tarp and haul me here by a mule drawn wagon are on hold, pending the legal wrangling... I may have to go to a Plan B.

Halibut Royale

Charleston, Oregon

This place had frozen halibut. I had to buy paprika, scallions, sour cream and dry white wine to make the recipe.


1 cup dry white wine
2 tsp. salt
1 lb. Alaska Halibut steaks
¼ cup fine dry bread crumbs
½ cup each sour cream & mayonnaise
¼ cup minced green onions
paprika

Combine wine and salt; pour over halibut. Marinate in refrigerator at least 1 hour. Drain halibut on paper towels; dip both sides in breadcrumbs. Place halibut in shallow buttered baking dish. Combine sour cream, mayonnaise and green onions; spread over halibut. Sprinkle with paprika. Bake at 400°F for 10 minutes per inch of thickness, measured at the thickest part, or until halibut flakes when tested with a fork.

The Beatles song, "Come Together" came over the FM today. "One and One and One make Three" and "Come together over me". This seemed at the time to be proof that Paul was dead. We remember the "Paul is dead" sensation. We tried to play "Number nine" backwards to prove it but didn't know how.

He blew his mind out in a car
He didn't notice that the lights had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
They'd seen his face before

Oregon is known for spectacular tide pools. We saw some today on a long fin of sandstone that extended 400 yards out into the Pacific.

The fin has tide pools at low tide, but the "sneaker waves" will wash you away if you wait for the tide to come in. I was standing on the beach taking pictures when a rogue sneaker wave came in and got my sneakers wet.

The temperature here rarely rises above 70 degrees F. It's a great place to spend summers if you don't like being hot..

Last night I woke at 2:30 AM with a wet sensation in my ear.

The rocks here have been carved into very strange shapes by the waves.

It's a wonderful place to wander and take pictures.

These black seabirds were clinging to a cliff. I think at first thatthey might be black oystercatchers, but then Colm, over in Ireland, tells me they are comorants...he's right.


Today is out last day in Charleston before heading north to look for more tide pools. There are several State Parks nearby that we want to explore before we leave. One has some 200 foot waterfalls. Another has tide pools. This morning fog limited visibility to 50 feet at the water's edge. Maybe it will disperse later.