Local Day Trips-Oregon and Washington
The content in this week’s adventure represents 2 outings, one on my own and one with my lovely bride. Both provided excellent photo ops as well as unique item finds. Let’s get into it!
This first bit is a trip that I took on my own that went from Woodland to Ridgefield, Washington. Woodland is about 20 minutes, give or take, North of where we live. I’ve passed thru, via I-5, zillions of times over the years. I have explored East of I-5 many, many times. But the West side of the interstate has remained a mystery. So, I did a little research, made my list of things to make a point of seeing, the rest is all freestyle. The photo to the left is that of the Moose Lodge, located in old town Woodland. There is a great deal of farm country that holds lovely, old farm structures and equipment. I have to go back to get a couple of old barns that I didn’t quite get to. But what I DID get was quite memorable!
I was driving from one of the several freestyle stops around Woodland and I noticed a grove of trees out in a wide open slice of land. I got my P1000 out and zoomed in to see Blue Heron and White Egrets in a rookery within those trees. Once those trees get all their plumage then it will be really difficult to see them, so I was glad to have been there when I was. I’ll have to go back in the Autumn and be more specific in how I capture them. I’ll have a plan…
The highlight, one of, the next one is coming up, was discovering an Osprey nest. It was in a unique location, and area where they train folks to operate those really big cranes that you see alongside tall, city buildings, that’s where they were. Around these parts, any time there is a large body of water, and fish can be found there, the powers that be will erect these steel poles, about the size of a telephone pole, and place wooden pallets on top so the Osprey have a nice place to build a nest. These 2 to the left, male on the left, female on right, were in the process of building their nest together. I even have a shot of the female coming back to the nest carrying a branch, not unlike the one sen here, hanging off the side. This was sort of a bucket list shot for me, simple pleasures, as I have tons of eagles, waterfowl and small backyard type birds…I even have a Great Grey Owl…bucket list, but the Osprey nests I know about already are all too high for me to get a shot of whatever would be in the nest. This one was a great height and I took a bunch of really great shots! Even if you just take a pair of binoculars with you and don’t give a tinker’s cuss about photography, the rules of free styling still apply and will result in seeing some fantastic scenes.
My last stop for this day was at Ridgefield Wildlife Reserve in Ridgefield, Washington. This was most likely my last trip to this awesome place until Autumn. The trees and shrubs are just beyond budding and will have full foliage before the end of April or into the first part of May. Most birds will be hard to see, if not impossible to see, once this happens. At any rate, it truly is worthwhile to go if you’re a birder or photographer. Nutria, deer, waterfowl, herons and egrets, all sorts of backyard type birds and raptors can all be seen here…and our friend the painted turtle.
This Common Robin was taking a break from his worming duties to pose for this particular shot. My Nikon P1000 is an excellent camera for this kind of photography. But, it isn’t the fastest camera in the world to operate and its battery can run down quickly if you’re constantly zooming in and out. If I know that I’ll be using this camera allot, then I bring all 10 of the batteries I have for it. Fortunately, as in many instance in my photo taking history, I lucked out and this Robin posed just long enough for me to get this shot before flying away.
Of my photos of birds, and I have allot, this one would fit into the top five. I love everything about this Yellow Finch photo and I was again lucky in how long the posing went on. A factoid I did not know about this little bird is that the males will shed their beautiful, bright yellow head and breast feathers during the Autumn and keep only a trace amount of yellow until Spring when that awesome yellow color returns to their plumage.
This day was awesome from the start and the memories I captured will last a long time. Hope you enjoyed this little solo journey of mine. Remember, a 20 minute drive from our home brought me to a place I never really explored that intently, in the almost 40 years of living in this area, and it led me on a remarkable day trip…AND, there is more there in Woodland that I need to go back to and capture. Go as many places as you can…freestyle, get purposefully lost…it will pay off in volumes!
I have been to St. Helens, Oregon, before. I took a freestyle trip and got some cool photos. This particular journey my wife came with and we had the best time. It started by us going to North Plains, Oregon and going to the Bamboo Garden. This is a 20 acre bamboo nursery that we wanted to check out and see about obtaining some black bamboo for our yard. The knowledge base of the staff there exceeds all expectations and they’re a friendly bunch as well! On the way there, we took a road named, German Town Road, so that we could take back roads, like I like, in the hopes of seeing cool stuff. Well, we saw cool stuff that I made a mental note of for a return trip, barns and old houses I would like to go back and capture at another time. There was an old, abandoned church that we did stop at on the way to the Bamboo Garden and got some cool photos of, including my wife with her phone.
After our visit to the Bamboo Garden, off we popped to St Helens, Oregon. We took back roads and saw interesting vistas and more old structures and, once we got to St Helens, headed straight to old town. There are some cool old buildings, like the one pictured left, as well as…wait for it…ANTIQUE SHOPS!! My wife and I love really good ones and there is one that is almost directly across the street from the First National Bank, there in old town, called 2Cs Vendor Mall. I think we spent a couple of hours there and the two ladies that were running the place were lovely and accommodating…they could not have been sweeter!
I’m a sucker for vintage cameras and these two I purchased at 2Cs Vendor Mall and they look really good with the rest of my collection. I was actually surprised how many vintage cameras they had, but then again it was a huuuuge place, with an upstairs that was almost as big as the downstairs. We had the absolute best time in there and look forward to the next visit to this awesome antique store and the wonderful ladies running it.
So after our marathon antiquing experience, we stopped into the Running Dog Brewery. We had the pulled pork sliders and the brisket sliders, both with Cole slaw and a big pickle spear. Unfortunately, we were so hungry and wolfed down our food that by the time I thought of photographing my plate…well, the sliders were fully consumed. The meat, on both types of slider, was tender and moist and oh so good. The brews, there were quite allot to choose from, were flavorful and the alcohol content was appropriate for what I put out at the antique mall. Running Dog is a place you need to visit and, in another part of their building, they have a whiskey room. Very intimate in size but they did appear to have a fairly good selection of whiskies to choose from.
So, that is my story and I’m sticking to it. Two wonderful days of adventuring, one solo and one with my lovely wife. You can see so much in a day and you don’t even have to venture that far away from home. Just venture out! You can have allot of fun, experience new places, talk to interesting people, if for no other reason, asking a local where cool stuff is to see, or eat, etc. Get out there, everybody, and adventure…it’s so gratifying to connect yourself, in what ever way you can, to someplace new, to the people you encounter on your adventures, to as much as you can! I’ve got a couple more postings for this month and then I’m going on a trip…more on that later. Until next time, be and travel well!
