Sept 6, Astoria: Wet

I wonder how many people will show up for the last Sunday Market of the year today? It could happen. After the squall, the sun came out and people are walking the streets again, although the weather man shows T-storms and rain all day. On the river, the colors are indescribable, where you get the clouds, dark background, green water glowing in the sun highlighting a buoy, a stretch of the river, the green bridge. And then it changes in the blink of an eye. It should be interesting for viewers, but maybe not so for those having to set up tents with all their carefully hand-made or homegrown products . . . and keep them from getting wet or blowing away!

This photo shows a bit of the river walk outside of the Animal Store facing east toward the Maritime Museum, Custard King, and the park where I was bitten by fleas.

July 26, Astoria: Flowers on 14th Street

One of my favorite street corners in Astoria has nothing much on it except these flowers, and old tree, and a funky old metal railing. I love this corner. I walk past it often, and I enjoy that fact that someone bothers to plant the flowers. Or maybe they re-seed each year, but I expect they originally came from a package. As I write this in September, the flowers are gone. Their memory remains, though, in this quickly-snapped photo. And, I look forward to seeing them next year!

For more flower photos, please check out Floral Friday :)

April 29, Astoria: Reflected sunset

It was such a beautiful evening along the River Walk, and the sunset seemed to go on forever. Below you can see more of the pictures (including this one again, since I'm creating a separate post for my entry in the first "Reflections on Saturday" photomeme :) I think the orange, puple, pink, and gray all look pretty cool together.

NOTE, October 3, 2009: I decided not to pursue running a Reflections meme, because I really don't have the time, so I was thrilled to see James start one. Please check out Weekend Reflections and participate if you can!

April 2, Astoria: Ships on the waterfront

It was overcast this morning with some interesting cloud effects on the river. Also a couple of interesting ships. The Oregon Responder (above) is an oil-spill clean-up boat. I'm not sure what else it does or where it was coming from today. It looks like it was going back to its home dock, which is in the West Mooring basin in Astoria.

I did a post on the Aleutian Ballad in November. Here it is on the river going towards the ocean. The waves are getting rough.

And then the sky cleared up except for scattered clouds, but it's still cold and windy. I've been inside working all day, just going out on the deck to take a few photos.

After work, I put on my heaviest jacket and went out to wander around the Maritime Museum a bit and look at the ships, boats and whatever I could find. It was a good excuse to get out and stand in the wind for awhile. I should ask them at the museum about this little harbor made of pilings. It doesn't seem to offer much shelter for a boat, so I wonder what it's used for.

Here's an old bell in front of the Maritime Museum. The housing, support, whatever, has new paint, though.

Near the bell are several benches, and this plaque is in the pavement under one of the benches. Captain Gray was the first person of European descent to discover the Columbia River, and he named it after his ship, the "Columbia Rediviva."

And here's the plaque in situ beneath the bench in front of the museum. The ship in the water, the Columbia, is a retired lightship, and has nothing to do with Captain Gray's sailing ship.

I really like this photo of the Coast Guard buoy, also retired and floating here at the museum. It's actually rocking pretty hard on the waves today.

The ship and the buoy. The lightship is part of the museum, and you can tour through it when the museum is open.

This photo shows the Maritime Museum along with the buoy and the Columbia lightship. I love the colors, especially of the buoy.

I took this picture to show what was happening with the water. When the buoy rocked, it smacked down on the water causing small waves.

On the other side of the pier, this boat caused even larger waves when it rocked. The Spirit of '98 from Seattle isn't one I see here very often. That doesn't mean it isn't a regular, but I've rarely noticed it. I don't get over here to look at the boats that often. If you can see it, there's the faintest rainbow in the spray. Of course, once I took camera away from my eye, the boat rocked up a much better rainbow!

Here's the Spirit at the dock with dark clouds to the east.

This is the Coast Guard ship Steadfast, which pretty much lives here in the dock.

That's the peninsula of Tongue Point.

I took this one from the east side of the Maritime Museum. I didn't get the shot just as the waves crashed the highest. This is a river, not the ocean, but we do get waves. It's so wide that the wind has a chance to blow them up on a windy day.

More waves, lighting, and old pilings from east of the Maritime Museum.

I love it that the old pilings and foundations in the river turn such a bright green. Nice seagull, too.

Along the River Walk in the evening

There was plenty of light when I left home to walk to the gym with my backpack filled with all my stuff. I haven't bothered to put the shampoo and stuff into smaller bottles, so it was pretty heavy. I could have ridden my bike or taken the car, but sometimes it just feels like a walking day, and so it was. My back has been feeling better, maybe largely due to raising my computer screen up higher off the desk than I'd ever done before. I'm seeing a new chiropractor in Bend and she was adamant about this. It IS making a difference!

We've had clear days for about a week. The light almost looks like the dog days of summer, but it's still in the mid-40s during the day. I guess the bare trees would be a give-away, too.

I'm walking away from this scene, east toward the gym, but it's hard not to look back. I don't know what this cement slab thing is. There are all sorts of nifty ruins of things here. Most of them have to do with the heyday of canneries.

This scene is just east of Pier 39.

Now I've been to the gym, taken a long shower and am heading back. Is it beautiful, or what? If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see a ship in the sunset at the right side of the visible part of the bridge.

Lovely. There were still a few people out running and walking their dogs. I haven't reached the Maritime yet.

Looks a little like Chinese writing, but it's really the lights on the side of the old Englund Marine building making patterns between the pilings.

Now I'm home. This is Area Properties to the left and the Astor Hotel rearing up to the right. The Animal Store/TPF is just behind me. I'm going in. It's still nice out. It seems warmer than it did on the walk toward the gym. What a pretty evening it's been. And my hair's washed. Yeah! I love the new stuff I bought to put on after the conditioner. It's called BioSilk. It feels great and replaces three kinds of goo I was having to use to attempt to make it come out right. And then it didn't. On another topic, has anyone noticed how many words have a capital letter in the middle but no space (like BioSilk)? I think this happened when computers wouldn't read file names with spaces in them, and then it got trendy. Anyway, nice product! Smooth, light, non-sticky. No, I don't sell it, ask your hairdresser.

Schizophrenic weather in Astoria

There was some ice this morning, but not a lot. We'd been told to expect a heavy freeze, but it didn't come through. Most of the dark stuff is water on the pavement.

There was a bit of snow, but it hadn't penetrated the trees and the lees of buildings.

Inside, Santa's helpers spent the day packing and shipping lots of boxes, including last-minute inventory that arrived with no time to put it away.

This is 15th Street and Marine Drive. Schools were closed, in at least in part of our area, so I was surprised to see the bus. I thought the yellow and warm earth tones were pretty in contrast with the snow.

Snow and also raindrops on the kitchen sage and grass. The weather couldn't decide what it wanted to do today, so we got a mixture of stuff.

See what I mean? These pictures are in order. Now it's snowing like a maiac.

Two river pilots are either coming from or going to work. Nice day to go out on the water in a small boat and climb a ladder onto a ship, yes? They laughed a friendly greeting when they saw me taking their picture.

Then it cleared up again, sort of.

Here's the radio tower and our building on the left. It looks like a balmy summer day.

From inside The Animal Store a resin parrot and plastic meerkat take note of the scene.

After everything calmed down and melted, it hailed. Most of the white stuff in this photo is hail. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Moss-edged River Walk, Astoria

There was a fine growth of moss along the River Walk from near Safeway to the Maritime Museum today as Lee and I walked late in the afternoon. We'd started out the other direction, went to Pier 11, looked at some galleries on 10th and Commercial, then headed along the river to Safeway. Coming back, the moss caught the light. The traveller ahead of us liked it too, because she stopped several times to take photos, just as I did - almost at the same moment, same position to catch the sun's reflection. I suppose we'd had just enough water and just enough light to cause the moss to paint the walkway. And the sun was just so in the fading afternoon.

I remember how bright the water was. The river gleamed white, not blue. I was thinking that if I painted the river from what my mind knew about rivers, I'd get it wrong. At this moment, it was reflecting bright white from the overcast sky.

River, rain, eagle, and ships

It was a dark and drippy day. These photos were actually taken between about 9:30 and 10:00 in the morning, so you can see how heavily gray it was. Lee had walked to Safeway, and was coming back when he saw the waterlogged eagle on its perch on some pilings. He called me and I came over with the camera. Earlier, on his way to Safeway along the River Walk, he'd seen a flock of pelicans, which is odd along the river, and maybe odd for this time of year as well. I like this picture because it has the green buoy in it.

The eagle was attentive to various sounds and sights on the river - mainly the sights. He's got his eye on this fishing boat. You can see how the feathers on the back of his head are pretty messed up. He's simply quite wet and the water has made rivulets in his feathers.

There was a ship on the river along with the fishing boat.

And another ship. We weren't there all that long. It was a busy time. Meanwhile, I kept trying to get a decent close-up, which didn't happen. I'm pretty happy with the camera I've been using, but it's not up to close-ups of far-away eagles. This piling was a ways out in the river. Once I switched to the digital zoom, the image broke up. These are taken at the extent of the optical zoom.

I'm not sure what he's seeing now, but he certainly is vigilant. He was tolerant of Lee and me as I took quite a lot of photos, and tolerant of a group of men who sat on a nearby bench and watched. He stayed calm when a couple of visitors from out of town arrived with teenage boys and Lee talked with them. The kids wanted to throw something at the eagle to see him fly, but were discouraged from bothering him. They were nice, they were just acting like kids, and they did not end up throwing anything. Normally, we see eagles in the trees higher up on the hill, not here on the pilings, so it was a nice sight for us, and a pretty cool juxtaposition with the boats.

Colors on the catwalk and water, Astoria

Rain

It was pouring down rain tonight in Astoria, as it did last night. This photo was taken from inside The Animal Store (Tapir Preservation Fund headquarters) at 1490 Marine Drive. That's our legal address. Actually, Marine Drive is where you see the blue-green light on the pavement in the middle of the photo. Below the mass of darkness is the trolly track, here filled with water and raindrops, and in front of that is the River Walk. We are right ON the River Walk, but the address is confusing, because apparently the River Walk is not a legal address, at least not on this block. The building on the far right, mostly dark, is Area Properties, and the one on the left is Hunt's furniture store. The morning had been bright and sunny (see the photo below). It seems now we're in for a lot of rain, but that's nothing new!