A different view of the beach

On Wednesday mornings, most of the volunteers at Harris Beach State Park and two other close by parks meet for breakfast at Mattie’s Pancake House in Brookings.  I may be a volunteer for the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service, but I’m stationed at an Oregon State Park, so I decided to participate.  I don’t think I’ve eaten out for breakfast since 2008! 

I was able to get a suggestion of where to get a hair cut.  There’s a lady barber in town that only takes walk-ins, is fast, very reasonable, and didn’t scalp me.  Can’t beat that.  A bonus of finding the barber shop was that I also found a farmer’s market just setting up.  I love farmer’s markets.  As I approached the booths, the fragrance of fresh strawberries was dominant.  You can bet I’ll be there most Wednesday mornings while I’m here.  I won’t linger on the homemade macaroons and jar of strawberry/balsamic jam that I also purchased…

It was back to work for me today, and I was set up under overcast skies by 8:30.  I had a few visitors, but by 11:00 a huge fog bank had moved in that obliterated any view of the island.  Time to pack up and go home.  This assignment is totally weather dependent.  If you can’t see anything, you quit for the day.  I can live with that.

By the middle of the afternoon, the fog had backed off a bit so Emma and I went for a walk on the Rock Beach Trail.  There is a nice view of the bay from some wonderfully placed benches along the trail.  I’m thinking this may become my favorite spot during my time here to just sit and enjoy.

The view near the railing gives a little bit different perspective of the beach.  You can see and hear the wave action, but you’re way up on topLooking to the right, you can see the day use area down below.  All of those rocks and islands out there are part of Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge.

This is the first time I’ve tried using the ‘Paint’ program to point some things out to you all.  The arrow on the right shows the overlook area where I set up my scope to show folks the birds.  The arrow on the top left is Bird/Goat Island where the birds nest.  And the dot by the lower left arrow is, in my opinion, a crazy person out trying to ‘catch a wave’!  The outside temp is only in the 50’s, and I can’t imagine how cold that water is. 

If you look to the left from the railing you can see the water filling in between the mainland and this big rock island as the tide comes in.  There’s a tide pool hike scheduled for Saturday morning that I think I’ll go to, and I believe this path leads to those tide pools.  I need to learn about the tide pool inhabitants so I can let visitors know about them.

As the holiday weekend approaches, the campground has already begun to fill up.  From what I’ve heard, there won’t be one empty site come tomorrow night.  Maybe I’ll have a few more visitors at my overlook this weekend?

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy