what about the plastic animals?

Pedernales Falls State Park

Here's the falls at Pedernales Falls State Park, a bit more than an hour's drive north of San Antonio in the Hill Country of Texas.  The Pedernales is not much of a river in the middle of a drought.  It makes for an interesting landscape though.

On the Ferry

My time in Port Townsend was short in part because I needed to catch the first ferry if I wanted to do all the things I wanted to do in Seattle later that day.  The first ferry left early!  Like, 6:30 a.m. or so.

I skipped breakfast and got to the pier early enough to take a few pictures of the Olympic Mountains to the south.  Soon enough I was in line and parked in the bowels of the ferry.

When I made the ferry reservation there was a list of rules, one of which was that drivers had to stay with their cars because the trip only took thirty minutes.  As you can see, there wasn't much of a view where I was parked.  I wanted to walk around the ferry, but half-heartedly tried to write a few postcards before dozing off.

You know what woke me up?  An announcement that the ferry was going to be docking in a few minutes and that drivers should return to their vehicles.  No fair!  Ah, well, it was on to Whidbey Island.

Beach Erosion Writ Small

Hurricane Irene caused massive amounts of erosion at The Beach on Harlem Meer.  A lot of sand was washed away or rearranged.  The middle photo shows the formation of a new spit.  The squiggly green lines in the top and bottom photos is where duckweed was deposited on and above the beach.  It's about a foot above the meer at this location, which is pretty impressive for a large pond.

Bonus:  If you look very closely at the top of the last photo you'll see a great blue heron sitting on the newly formed spit.  It later alighted when someone thought it was a good idea for their little yippy dog to chase the ducks and flew across the meer to land in this tree.

The "D" River

That's the D River in Lincoln City, Oregon.  All of it.  The good people of Oregon claim that the D is the shortest river in the world.  The bridge I was standing on is over the edge of Devil's Lake.   From lake to ocean the river is 120 feet long at high tide.  The tree stumps in the river mark the high tide line.  Lincoln City hosts huge kite festivals twice a year at the D River beach.

Visiting the D didn't take too long.  It was after noon and I was hungry so it was off to lunch in Lincoln City.  Since I had a long way to go I wanted a quick lunch.  Urbanspoon told me a pizza place and a sandwich shop that I would drive be on the way out of town would be my best bets.  I pulled up to the pizza place and saw that it had no customers.  Not a good sign at lunch time.  The sandwich place was likewise deserted.  A Thai restaurant that wasn't listed in Urbanspoon had several customers. 

That was a good sign! 

That was a misleading sign!  It was easily the worst meal on the trip.  Tom Yum soup is supposed to look like this.  Note the shrimp!  Note the absence of broccoli!  Note the absence of grayish-brownish-greenish broccoli!  The soup was horrible and the chicken curry wasn't much better.  It was time to get back in the car, head up the coast, and find a beach to explore. 

Horsetail Falls

Rowena Crest is near the boundary between the dry parts of central Oregon and Washington and the wet Cascades.  Keep driving west and you'll soon come upon a series of waterfalls.  The best known and highest is Multnomah Falls but the first one is Horsetail Falls.  It is an easy climb up to and behind the falls and there are a lot fewer people here than at Multnomah.  The moss is a sneak preview of more to come.

This is the view from behind the falls:

 

Bronx River Waterfall

Here's a cool, refereshing waterfall on the Bronx River.  Don't jump in though.  On the same day I broke my hand last year two teenagers drowned here when they got tangled up in underwater tree debris.

Rainy Wait

It wasn't the most enjoyable morning for the bus to be fifteen minutes late.

Take Only What You Really Need

The world, or at least a paper towel dispenser at a San Francisco International Airport men's room, begins to catch up with me!

Only one reader knows what I am talking about so I better commence with a story.  At one point during my Nebraska days there was a drought and the city of Lincoln began taking water conservation measures. 

Since a drinking fountain was across the hall from the graduate student office, I decided to help the city out.  A sign that said something like "Drink only what you need" was placed above the fountain.  You couldn't drink from the fountain without seeing the sign.  Admittedly the sign wasn't going to stop depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer, but it was fun watching students do a double-take before getting a drink of water.

Unrelated:  Silk is an excellent way to spend a few minutes.

The David Stroup Fountain

It's the David Stroup Fountain in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.  Stroup was a 19th century candy merchant in Bloomsburg who left money for a fountain.  The fountain was cast, probably not a mile from where I'm currently sitting, by the J. L. Mott Iron Works in the Bronx, and was erected in Bloomsburg in 1892.  The fountain began to deteriorate in the 1950s and was removed in 1966.  Two local residents began restoring the fountain as best they could in 1982.  In the early 2000s the original plans were found (links to pdf) and the fountain was completely rebuilt, except for a crane on top, in 2002.  In 2005 the crane was found and restored to its rightful place.  You can almost see it as the bird spits a line of water in the bottom photo.

I wasn't expecting an interesting back story.  I thought it was a pretty fountain that needed its picture taken.

Bloomsburg seems like an enjoyable little college town.  I had stopped there once before, but this time I walked around a bit to stretch my legs before driving the rest of the way back home.

Believe it or not there's only one more post from last fall's trip.  It will be out of order because I have yet to take a picture of what I collected back in Grove City.

Drip

Drip, drip, drip.  I was trying to catch a drop just as it fell off the icicle.  This was the best my patience would allow me do.  Plus I was out for a walk in the middle of the afternoon at work.

Unrelated:  In case you have ever wondered, here's what the White Castle headquarters in Columbus, Ohio looks like.