Leaf "Portraits"

The fall colors were so beautiful this year, weren't they? Our neighborhood has a lot of really pretty trees. Most of them aren't on our street though, so I took a little walk around the neighborhood to find some of the "prettier" leaves. I was glad there were still some left! We get a really strong gorge wind over here, and it blew so hard this week that it seemed like it would blow all the leaves away.

A Little Time in the Sun

We were so blessed to be able to take a family trip to Hawaii last week. This trip actually wasn't connected to my first two trips (the Sterner family was back on the mainland, so unfortunately we didn't even get to see them). However, knowing that I would have this opportunity to come back with the rest of the family, I had been storing up ideas of things I wanted to show them. We stayed four out of our five nights in a cabin at Bellows Air Station over on the east side of Oahu. It's a lovely little spot, and it was a prefect "home-away-from-home." I didn't take as many pictures as I expected, but one thing that definitely brought out my camera was the sunrise on the beach at Bellows. It was a wonderful thing to experience.

No sun yet, but lots of color. That's Rabbit Island on the right there. 

Looking south. (And yes, I know this is the only picture with a copyright. I'm still working on that.)

There's the sun!

I spent more time boogie-boarding than photographing. We were in the water pretty much every day. It was so much fun! We did go on some hikes to a couple places I visited this spring, Diamond Head and Makapuu Lighthouse Trail. I took pictures again, but they look pretty much the same!

Here's a picture from Makapuu. This is looking north. Remember the mountain range in the picture above? Makapuu is the farthest little point on that range going toward the ocean. We could see the lighthouse light from Bellows at night. So in this picture, you're actually looking out to the stretch of beach that Bellows is on in the background.

This is the Makai Pier where we went snorkeling. There was some nice coral and pretty fish, and the water was very clear!  

It was a great trip. The best part about it was being able to do these things together as a family. We had a lot of fun and just got to relax. It's good to get away from the normal everyday.

Now we're back home to cool fall Northwest days. Hawaii, I miss you and warm days in the sun.

Random Shot

McKenzie Head

We only spent one night at Cape Disappointment, but I guess I was kind of "snap-happy," so here's post number three.

North Head in the morning

On our way out of the park we stopped by McKenzie Head. It's a significant site for Lewis and Clark history. They camped in this area when they reached the Pacific Ocean. There's a nice memorial at the bottom of the trail up McKenzie Head.   

From the top of McKenzie Head you can see the little triangle of land that goes out towards the north jetty for the Columbia. That was pretty neat, but I think the bunker behind the view point is equally interesting. Apparently, this was one of the places where they kept guns stationed during World War II to protect the mouth of the Columbia. The bunker is open and you can walk around inside. However, it's extremely dark in there so we didn't explore very much. I'd like to go back with a flashlight.

Partway down the trail there is another old building that must have had some purpose related to the bunker. I'm fascinated by old buildings and I like to photograph them, so we had to go investigate a little.

Nightscape at Cape Disappointment

I was very happy to have the opportunity to experiment with some night shots on the beach. Most of them didn't come out all that well, but I was excited about how a couple of them turned out. I was mostly trying to get the lighthouse, but then I realized that I could pick up stars, too. I'd like to experiment with this kind of shot again sometime. This is looking toward North Head Lighthouse.