Today is Annie's 14th birthday. We're always reminded of the scarey time we all had for the first few days after she arrived, but equally of how healthy and wonderful she is now. We'll celebrate with her tomorrow.
This morning we set out on a hike. We had checked out hiking possibilities in the area earlier and found a trail beginning at the nearby Lewis and Clark State Park. It's marked only "Trail to the Butte," so we looked on Google for more info. There we found a mountain climbing site that calls the area "Broughton Bluff" and describes several climbing opportunities. We're definitely not mountain climbers, but we wanted to explore the trail up to the climbing faces.
We walked over to the park, which is only half a mile from Sandy Riverfront. The base of the trail has a sign warning of poison oak, so we were careful to stay on the trail. It started out as an easy switchback, but then got progressively steeper. Parts were actually almost boulder scrambling, and we were glad to have our hiking sticks.
We made it to the junction at the base of the cliffs and turned right. Soon we came upon a couple of climbers. We continued past them for a while, but in a little way came to a more difficult area and decided to turn around. At some points we could see our campground through the trees, but the people we have seen high up here on the side of the cliffs must have been actual climbers and much higher up than we made it.
After we descended, we followed the nature trail around the park and then took a trail that branched off to the east. It was a much easier trail, although it did climb the hill as it went. We followed it for a while, until we realized that it was heading due east and not circling the butte. Most of the view was of the Union Pacific rail lines and trains rumbling through.
After lunch we went out to Rooster Rock State Park. Part of our mission there was to check out the possibilities for viewing the Perseids, but we also hiked along the river. The water is so high that it wasn't possible to get very close to the river, but there were blackberries along the way to console me. The advantage of a river side location for viewing the meteor shower is that it provides a clear view of the northeast sky, plus this area is far enough from the city to have reasonably dark skies.
We are getting ready for another adventure. We'll spend the night tomorrow at the duplex and leave Thursday morning to visit Shawn's parents at the coast. They live in the small town of Neskowin.
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