Bruce & Julia at Ridgefield

After church we met with Bruce and Julia at our place for another fun day in the sun. They arrived with many delicacies for a lunch and as the temperature was a bit brisk for lunch on our deck we ate inside, enjoying the view. Then we explored the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge. There were no rare sightings but we enjoyed exploring the area. We were amazed at the size of some of the huge oak trees in the refuge and could not resist climbing them.

As we did not bring our bird book along we were not able to positively identify the many ducks and birds we observed but that did not stop us from enjoying the sightings. As so much walking, talking and exploring made us hungry we again visited our local Mexican restaurant to bring the day to a close.

Coast Trip

The weatherman forecasted several days of sunny weather so Nancy and I decided we should not let them go to waste. We packed a picnic and debated whether we should go to the mountains or the beach. Since it was sunny but still a bit brisk we opted for the coast. We decided to go down the Washington side of the Columbia River which pretty much follows the Lewis and Clark route. This was our first trip on this route. We stopped at the informational markers along the way to refresh our memories of the historical trip. Portland is about 80 miles inland but is a sea port so several times we saw ships traveling on the river.

We stopped for a picnic along the way and absorbed sun the whole day long. We walked on Long Beach and saw the preserved skeleton of a whale that had been washed ashore years ago. In the Lewis and Clark journals they mentioned coming across beached whales and how horrible they smelled so covered them with sand. We were glad it was only the skeleton we came across.