10/29/08 This is going to be a long post because of all the pictures I want to put on here about the wedding. It was a fabulous day, made so special because of all the love and support we received from family and friends who came long distances to attend. Additionally Boomer friends and Park Sierra members worked hard to help us do all the set up and they did everything during the actual event to make things go smoothly.
Because RV friends had been arriving for days in advance in order to help, the social whirl started early. Thank goodness for Mike and Marilyn Harrison, who came early and who helped with everything from wardrobe and our rig decor, to arranging flowers, and helping prepare some of the food.

Laura and Gordon Bornkamp also came early and helped especially with photography.

Viv and Curt Rogers, Park Sierra members and wonderful friends, arranged all the hotel rooms and all the decorations, and got the bar set up.

Jeanne Taylor and Rodger Lyman, our neighbors, bought all the champagne for the toast and handled all the food arrangements at the reception.

Actually, there were so many people who did such special things for us that we can't list them all here!
One of the prep things we did was to put out a collage of pictures of our past 29 years together for people to look at while waiting for the ceremony to begin. Here it is:

Elaine and I met with the minister, Diana Bohn, at 2 PM for a quick rehearsal, and then we got dressed in our garb while everyone gathered in the clubhouse. Here is a picture of us with her and her partner, Grady, who kept introducing himself to everyone as "the minister's wife".

Here is a picture of the "altar" table that Viv and company set up for us:

And here are the books they used when they couldn't find a Bible in the library:

Imagine our surprised as we left the clubhouse to see Rachel, Connie & Jenny, three friends from a cruise we took 3 years ago, who had come here from North Carolina just for our wedding! They are wearing their tuxedo shirts from one of their cruises:

Then Anja & Ole arrived; a young couple we met in Baja 10 years ago who live in LA and who show up periodically in our lives and it is always a surprise. Anja is a professional photographer, and she took lots of pictures which we are anxious to see but don't have yet for this blog. Here is our picture with them after the ceremony:

So we arrived at the clubhouse and were absolutely astounded at the number of guests! We expected about 150, since we had invited everyone at Park Sierra, and we knew we had about 30 family and friends coming. There were somewhere between 180 and 200 people in attendance! Here is a view of part of the hall:

Here is a picture of us as we arrived at the clubhouse:

Our kids and granddaughter were waiting for us and we all lined up to start the ceremony. Here we are as our friend, Jan Vecchio, sings the song "One Hand, One Heart" from West Side Story:

Then the actual ceremony began and Diana did a marvelous job of balancing seriousness with levity. We had written our own vows and she embellished them and added her own considerable charm to the presentation. Laura and Gordon Bornkamp took a video of the ceremony and we didn't realize until we viewed the video later that Elaine was so nervous, she was rocking back and forth a lot of the time!

When it was over, we spontaneously did the victory pose:

After that, our friend, Alice Zyetz came up on stage and sang us a song:

Then it was time to PARTY!! Besides all the wine, beer and soft drinks we provided, there was lots of good food brought by Park Sierra people:

And we had ordered 4 cakes from Costco, with our own messages on them:




After I read a poem to everyone, telling about our life, then Elaine's son, Darran, gave a toast to us with everyone having champagne or sparkling cider.

After that, we opened up the mike to anyone who wanted to roast us and to our surprise, the first one up there was Dino, my ex-son-in-law, and the father of Paige, my oldest and very charming granddaughter:

Then Paige got up and told about some of her times camping with us. Just imagine, she told everyone that we sometimes bicker!!

She was followed by Tom Eldridge, one of the best teachers at Cupertino High where I was a Science teacher and coach for years. Tom has known me, and my twin, Marsha, since we were all on the Santa Clara Swim Club together at age 11! He and his wife Kimbra came from Colorado for this wedding!

Then we listened to Art Wilson, who used to have a lot here at Park Sierra, and who came from Arizona with his wife, Sammie. He told about first meeting us years ago and told funny stories about crabbing with us in Oregon too.

Grace Rankin, another former Park Sierra lot holder, who came from Fremont to attend, told about going on a trans-Atlantic cruise with us and how we reacted when they arranged a special celebration for us on our 26th "anniversary".

Then Elaine's daughter Tarra gave the crowd quite a few laughs when she described being a little girl and deciding how she would explain to people that she had two Moms.

Thomas, Mary's son, and the oldest at age 9 when we first got together, described how he helped with the yard work on our rentals and thus was a large contributor to our ability to retire early.

Jan Vecchio gave a little talk about being Elaine's accountant and friend from the time when Tarra was just a baby, and then she sang some more:

Elaine and I had made some CD's of music special to us so we danced to a few:

There were lots of people who came long distances to be with us on our special day. We took pictures with them and here are a few:

Betty Prange, who came early in her RV and helped and also took some of these pictures.

My twin, Marsha, my brother John, and my brother Jerry with his wife, Diann. Marsha flew out from Denver, John drove from San Jose, and Jerry and Diann are from Lake Wildwood.

Here are the Lane's with Lois Cissell and Shirley Willes Seward, friends of ours since elementary school. Lois came from Roseville and Shirley from Henderson, NV in order to attend this wedding.

Four of Elaine's five sisters flew out for this. From the left they are Barbara Traughber, from Wisconsin, Georgeanne Daly from Illinois, Penny McCarthy from Arizona, and Mary Sue Cannell from Illinois.

Our friends Ron & Carol Leonard, from Citrus Heights drove down to be here. We are lucky enough to stay on their property when we need to be in that area.

Our friends Bruce and Maria Roberts, who were with us on the Panama Canal RV trip in 2004 came to stay a few days early and we shared Maria's birthday with her too.

Tarra and Darran, Elaine's kids, and a huge part of my life for 29 years, were instrumental in suggesting we have this ceremony and supporting us in this endeavor.
Then the boys signed our marriage license:

Diana signed our marriage license:

And we were legal!!!
The next day, we had a very nice champagne brunch at Chukchansi Casino with mostly family and a few friends.

We took the opportunity to have a few more pictures taken since we rarely have such a gathering of family and friends. Here is a picture of our kids and their spouses/partners with us:

Paige is sitting next to me, Tarra and her husband Alonzo are next to Elaine. Darran and his partner Marielle, Thomas and his partner Robert are in the back row.
Of course, until all the RV friends have left, we are having social gatherings such as this one, held at our rig on Monday because Mike and Marilyn and Gordon and Laura were leaving the next day.

Now that things have settled down, people are asking us if we feel any different. We are still on a high from all the excitement and the love and support of so many friends and family. One of the best things to happen as a result of us having this event in such a public way is that at least 4 park members have come to talk to us about their own Gay children and their hopes and fears for them. Other park members have told us that we have been instrumental in changing their minds about the negative stereotype they had of Gay people. If we have caused just one person to change their vote in this election to a NO vote on proposition 8, it will all be worth it. We have a video of the entire ceremony and as soon as I figure out a way to put it on the web so you can access it, I will post the link.

10/28/08 Yes, we know you have all been waiting patiently for pictures and a description of the wedding on Saturday. In our defense, we have been swamped with company and after-the-wedding chores. We are also very tired because in anticipation of the big event and all the family coming, we must have been tense because we weren't sleeping well. So we are exhausted. Anyway, I have started collecting and editing all the pictures taken by our 5 photographers, and will have a totally wonderful presentation which will be posted for you sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, I must say that it was an absolutely marvelous event and we have been on cloud 9 ever since. Here is a picture to keep you going until tomorrow's posting:

Mary's son, Thomas; Our granddaughter, Paige, Mary; Elaine; Elaine's daughter, Tarra; Elaine's son, Darran with our Minister Diana Bohn in the center.
Right after Diana declared us Life Partners together.

10/14/08 An exciting Tuesday here because our friends, Mike & Marilyn Harrison arrived in their RV to spend the next two weeks with us! They are now parked on site 402 which is located in front of us and about 50 yards away. Of course, the first thing we had to do when they were set up was go over to see their redecoration job. It is FABULOUS! They did it all themselves, except for the new carpet installation. They even recovered the couch and the dinette seats and made matching pillows. Amazing. I will try to get some pictures of the inside and post them in the next few days.
This past weekend we drove down to San Diego to stay with Elaine's son, Darran, and his girlfriend, Marielle. Here is a picture of them with Elaine:

The reason we went was to attend the wedding of our friends Kathy and Sally on Saturday. Friday night Darran had to work so we took Marielle out to dinner at a Thai restaurant and got to know her a lot better. We think she is delightful, and a perfect match for Darran. Saturday morning we took them both out for breakfast and then had a nice walk along the boardwalk and over to the walkway along Mission Bay. It was a beautiful sunny day and it was great to be along the ocean. There were some guys there building a huge sand castle, and I didn't have a camera along so I took a picture with the phone. Not such a good one but you can get the idea.

Darran has worked on this same beach for a crew filming a TV show called Sandblasters where they have teams which build wonderful and huge sand sculptures and then they draw numbers to see which ones get blown up. Kathy and Sally's wedding was held at the beautiful new home of their friends Bridget and Sylvia in Escondido. There were about 20 people there and the ceremony was held out by the pool. Kathy's daughter had flown in from Idaho, and Sally's daughter and her family came from Santa Cruz, and her son and wife live nearby. Their best friends, Dan & Peter, were able to marry them because they had obtained a one day license from the state to do so.

The wedding vows were excellent and we asked them for a copy in case we wanted to use part of it for our upcoming wedding. Kathy and Sally did such a great job and seemed so happy through the whole event. After the ceremony there was a catered meal and the Hawaiian pork was absolutely delicious. Of course, lots of wine was flowing, and perhaps Brian had too much because right in the middle of eating, he jumped right into the pool! It would have been more understandable if it hadn't been a pretty cold day and the pool wasn't heated. It was so cold that Elaine and I were wearing our leather jackets! So everyone adjourned to the kitchen where coffee and cake were served. The cake was 2 tiered and was spice cake on top and lemon cake on the bottom. Yum. It was really fun to meet all of Kathy and Sally's friends, and see their kids again. We always have a fun time when we are with them, and wish that we could have had more personal time with them this weekend too; but they had other things on their minds!
Sunday we bought food at the market and cooked eggs Benedict at Darran & Marielle's apartment before starting our long drive back to Park Sierra. Haven't had that for breakfast for ages and it was delicious! Another sunny day and the drive back was uneventful and comfortable. We were back at our rig by 5 PM. Of course, we immediately were invited to our neighbors, the Rodely's, for Happy Hour because they had a visitor they wanted us to meet. It was Margaret, an English friend they have known for about 30 years, I think. Our other neighbor, Jeanne Taylor, was there too. What a wonderful neighborhood we have here!
Yesterday the big event was that we were meeting Diana Bohn, the Methodist minister who will be marrying us, for dinner in Fresno. The intent was to go over our vows and for her to coach us a bit on what should happen at the wedding. We met her at BJ's Alehouse and Restaurant on Shaw Ave. where we had eaten once before and loved both the food and the beer. This time the beer was still excellent but the rack of ribs and the baked potato were a bit disappointing. They have a huge and varied menu and we would recommend them anyway.
This week there are lots of things going on here at Park Sierra because it is time for the annual meeting. So there will be a meeting Thursday, a dinner on Friday, a flea market in the parking lot on Saturday, and a breakfast on Sunday. Then the craziness leading up to our wedding on the 25th will start. We are getting lots of calls from people who are coming and also who are offering to help. It is shaping up to be a bigger event than we had thought, so we are packing our shed with cases of beer and wine and planning to buy lots of food at Costco to appease the masses.

10/6/08 Not a lot of exciting news here. Tomorrow I have jury duty in Madera, and I am hoping to get out of it if they select me. Things have been just fine here, weather-wise and since it is not so hot, the temps are about perfect. So it would be a crime to spend a wonderful mid-80 degree day in a courthouse!
Plans are proceeding for our wedding on October 25. We made up some invitations and put one in every mailbox here at Park Sierra. There are 254 mailboxes! In lieu of gifts we are asking park members to bring finger food if they come to the reception. This should help take some of the trickiness out of food planning, since we won't have a clue how many people are coming! We are providing wine, beer, sodas, some Costco snack platters, and cakes. People have been offering to help, and we are taking them up on it. Jeanne & Rodger, our neighbors, are providing the champagne for the toast and a few days ago they had us, and a few other neighbors, over for a tasting. See picture below. Good thing we tasted it before they bought it because one of the bottles, from Smart & Final, was so bad that we ended up dumping it out. Next we will see what kind we can get at Costco.

9/28/08 Sunday Night and we have just finished an enjoyable homemade pizza dinner with our neighbors Jeanne Taylor and Rodger Lyman, and our friends Viv & Curt Rogers. Usually when we make pizza it is because we want crab pizza, using some of the crab we recently caught in Oregon. But Viv is allergic, so we had a smoked salmon and veggie pizza, and a BLT pizza. Of course, we used fresh lettuce on the BLT pizza - not baked, silly. Now tomorrow we will have to exercise twice as hard to get these extra calories off!!!
Not much has been happening here although we have been trying to tackle a few "to do" items. Last weekend we went to the Reel Pride Festival in Fresno, where we saw a few interesting Gay films, and also picked up a few bumper stickers for our car and a big poster for our lot telling people to vote "NO" on Prop 8, which is the proposition to ban Gay marriage. It hadn't been up very long when we had a visit from our new park manager telling us that it wasn't permitted for us to have a political sign up on our lot. Elaine asked him if we could have stuff on our car and he said vehicles were OK. So she positioned our golf cart (the one Viv & Curt have extra so they are loaning it to us) so it faces the street and she stuck the big poster right across the windshield of it. Now that sign is even more visible than it was before! (And we are legal). We know that this action was precipitated by an overly religious park member who walks by our lot every day; so we hope she enjoys her enhanced view of our sign!

We will be spending the rest of this month here at Park Sierra, getting ready for the wedding, doing jury duty, having a few more appointments, and also getting ready for the next cruise. Because we didn't have anything special planned for November, Elaine wanted to take another trans-Atlantic repositioning cruise. We knew that our friends, Carole and Dick Schneider, who have been in Europe since May, were returning on the Navigator of the Seas on Nov. 10 from Barcelona. The price had dropped to $399 for a 12 day cruise, so it seemed reasonable. So yesterday we booked the cruise and a flight to Barcelona, leaving Nov. 8. Of course, by the time extra government tax is added and a fuel surcharge, the cruise costs about $600 each, but that still seems like a bargain. If anyone reading this blog wants all the information, let us know because it is not too late for friends to join us on this - our Honeymoon cruise!!!

9/17/08 Still here at Park Sierra and taking care of business. Not very interesting for BLOG readers!! The report on the doctor's appointments is that we had a bad run-in with the dermatologist. I had to have spots on my neck, nose (3) and lip burned with liquid nitrogen. Then he spotted Elaine's lip, which he said was worse than mine, and he zapped hers too - three times!! So we went to our lunch date with Diana Bonas, the Methodist minister who will perform our ceremony, with big blisters on our lips! Since then we have developed scabs and we are telling people that before getting married we wanted to have a really BIG fight!
Diana seems like a sweetie and we had a great time with her. She gave us lots of good suggestions for our ceremony and now we just need to work on the wording. It is like a homework assignment! Then we went to get our marriage license at the county clerk's office. There were about 10 people waiting around ahead of us and I'm sure we were an item of curiosity, covert looks, etc., but all went well. the license cost $49 so now we really have to go through with this - too much money invested to abort now....
There is a need for some follow-up appointments so we are hanging around Park Sierra waiting for these to be scheduled. It has been fairly hot here - in the 90's every day, which has been OK with us and we have now thawed from being frozen up in Oregon. Today the weather is starting to cool into the 80's which is about perfect and we will bask in it. On our daily walks we have been seeing lots of animals: deer, coyotes, quail, bunnies, squirrels, woodpeckers, and last night there was a skunk right in our patio area. The other evening on our walk we saw a baby rattlesnake on one of the streets in the park. There have also been sightings of a cougar and her 2 cubs down in the number 500 lots by the creek. It is great to have so much "nature" right around us. In case you haven't seen any of the pictures we have posted in the past about this park, here are a few:

Front View of Our Lot at Park Sierra #414

The back and side view from our lot.

The clubhouse at Park Sierra where our wedding will be held.

9/10/08 We have been back at Park Sierra for a few days now and until today, it has been HOT. Of course, we are enjoying having warmer weather. It has been good to be back here, helping with minor things at the park and seeing lots of old friends. Viv & Curt Rogers had us over for a delicious steak dinner on Monday and Mary & Dave Fountain were at our place for dinner last night. Sunday there will be a brunch at the Kimptons. When it is not too hot to be outside, we are tackling a few projects on the rig and in our shed.
Today we had some check-ups at Kaiser in Fresno, and tomorrow there will be more. We will also be meeting the minister who will be performing our ceremony on October 25. Reports on these events will be in the next blog.

9/5/08 I am writing this as Elaine is driving south towards the California border. This morning we left Days Creek, where we stayed several days with our friends Pat & Tom Bryant on their beautiful little farm. Not only are they always welcoming, when we visit, they are interesting and always busy with a myriad of projects. We were able to help with a few of them, but when it came to dealing with their critters, we left that up to them! Because we had just arrived from Winchester Bay, we had some fresh crab to share with them, and here is a picture of our first dinner together, enjoying the fruits of the sea.

The first day we were there, we went with Tom to the nearby river to collect some flat river rocks for his fireplace project in his big storage shed/shop/art room complex. Here is a picture of Mary & Tom at the site:

On the north side of the hill we could still find some good blackberries, so we wanted to pick some for a cobbler. Elaine was whining about how hard it was to get to them so Tom developed a new method of picking. He used a large leather glove to protect his hand and he cut off the stalks of berries and handed them to us in a dishpan and then we just plucked off the berries into another pan and threw the stalks away. We had a large amount of berries in about 10 minutes! The cobbler that night was delicious.
The next day we helped Pat out in their very large and productive garden. She had some small plants that had been developing in their greenhouse which she needed to plant. She also had a row of beets that were ready to harvest and she wanted to pickle them and can them. So we went out and helped with that. Here are some pictures of all the fun we had:

Pat Rototils the Garden

Elaine and Pat Planting

Elaine & Pat With Finished Rows

Pat's Pumpkins
As they were planting, my job was to harvet the beets. When the green leafy tops are cut off, then they get thrown over the fence to the waiting goats:

Because Pat &Tom have sheep and goats, they had to get a guardian dog to patrol the fenced areas to protect the livestock from predators such as cougars, coyotes, etc. Here is a picture of Dutch, the guardian dog:

The two newest critters on the farm are Fudge and Pudge. After all the great food we had here, we fall into the same category as these animals!

Before arriving at Tom & Pat's, we stopped at the Escapee park in Sutherlin to visit our friends Pam & Sid Bowen. We not only go to see their new park model, new truck, and new (old) small travel trailer, they took us out to lunch as an early wedding celebration/present. It was great to see them and here is a picture of them in front of their new trailer, which they will use to go over to the Crabfest on the coast, of course.

It has been nice to be off the coast and experiencing some warm weather! Now that we are heading towards Redding, it is even getting HOT. We will be back at Park Sierra within a day or two and have a few doctor's appointments next week. It will be good to see all our Park Sierra friends again, and also start getting arrangements made for the wedding on Oct. 25.

8/30/08 Another windy day here at Winchester Bay. Crabbing off the dock, we got 7 more crabs which we shared tonight with Jeanne Taylor and Rodger Lyman, Park Sierra friends. They arrived yesterday while we were spending the day driving to Eugene and Florence for an excursion. It is great to have them here and we hope they are enjoying the fresh crab!
Do you remember the lines from a Beatles song in the '60's that said, "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?" Well, those lines ran through my mind yesterday when I achieved that age. I'm glad to report that Elaine still needs me and occasionally feeds me, as she did yesterday when we had my birthday lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Eugene. We had driven over there to pick up our wedding rings at Kohl's. We had bought them in Albany about a month ago and had to have them resized. For those of you who don't know, we will be getting married in the Park Sierra clubhouse at 3 PM on October 25. Since we have been together for 29 years, it seems appropriate to take this step now that the California supreme court has made it legal. After we did some other shopping, we drove back to Winchester Bay through Florence, where we stopped at the casino for a short stay and won enough money to pay for some ice cream. Then we shared it with Jeanne and Rodger when we got back to the marina.

Thursday Ron Gibson came over in his boat and picked us up for a day of crabbing out on the Umpqua River. This is the river which is right outside the little harbor area where we are parked.

It was a beautiful sunny day when we got out there and we were even sorry that we had not worn tee shirts because it was so warm. That lasted only a short while because then the wind picked up, as usual, and we had to don sweatshirts and eventually jackets.

We worked our 3 crab traps and 3 of Ron's for about 5 hours and got 22 keepers.

This was so much better than last year! The bad part was that Ron ran over one of his traps and inadvertently cut the rope with the propeller and lost his trap. The good part was that Ron's boat is large and comfortable so it was much easier to be out in it in all that wind than if it was a smaller boat.

8/27/08 Just got back from Taco Night at the Eagles Club where we had dinner with Ron and Donna Gibson, RoVing Rod friends, and 3 other new friends we have met here on the crabbing dock. So we went out to check our traps and there were 3 keepers. That makes 6 today, which means things are picking up. Tomorrow we are going out in Ron's boat to see if we can get more crab by going out on the river near the mouth where it empties into the ocean. The theory is that since the crabs come from the ocean, we should get them first if our traps are out there!

Last weekend there was an event here in Winchester Bay called Kool Coastal Nights. Hundreds of older restored cars were on display here and they were so awesome! Of course, I was most partial to the 1956 Chevys because that was my first car. Had to get it in 1967 when I was a grad student and I needed a way to get to Palo Alto to the High School where I was student teaching.

This looks just like my first car!!!

Elaine's first car was a 1959 Ford Fairlane but we didn't see any of them here. After the cars had been on display all day Saturday, they "cruised" all around here and I took some pictures which I will post below for your viewing pleasure.
Yes, the weather has improved somewhat and yes, so has the crabbing, on some days. So that means we aren't so crabby!

8/21/08 Sure wish I was going to be reporting that we have been catching tons of crab but such is not the case. The weather here took a turn for the worst about 4 days ago and has been so bad that for several days we couldn't even get out on the dock to re-bait our traps. The rain was pouring down and there was so much wind that we had to pull in our slide-outs. Since we are always working on staying fit and we try to walk at least 3 miles a day, that was the most frustrating part - that we couldn't get out to walk.
Now for the good part. This morning things were much better because we re-baited our traps and within 3 hours had 3 keeper crabs and patchy sunshine. So we are about to go out for our second walk of the day and checking our traps once again.

8/12/08 Greetings Blog Readers, from Winchester Bay, OR. We have now moved south and are established in a spot at Salmon Harbor Marina and have paid for a month. Unfortunately, I started getting sick the day before we moved here and for the last 5 days I have been the most ill I have ever been with a gastro-intestinal disorder. We used some medicine we picked up in Egypt and Thailand and finally today I am starting to feel much better. Of course, I am still weak.
Our friends from the RoVing Rods, Donna and Ron Gibson have been staying in Reedsport at an RV park and they came over to welcome us when we got here. Then, a few days later, Ron caught 2 silver salmon and they brought over several packages of fillets for us. We fixed some for dinner and it was so delicious. We just love having seafood on the coast!!
Elaine has been crabbing off the dock and doing her own thing while waiting for me to get stronger so we can put our boat together. That might happen in a day or two. Here she is, cutting up tuna carcasses for bait.


Then she checks her traps and baits them again:

But today, when she checked her traps, she not only got a big crab but it had a tag on it which means she is in contention for the $1000 prize in a month long contest here. There are other prizes too. Won't know until the 31st!!

When she went over to the Sportmen's Cannery to register her tag, they took a picture of her with her big crab and gave her a red baseball cap that says "Crab Bounty Hunt".

There were 3 other keepers in our traps today too, so tonight we will be having a delicious crab dinner. Yum!
The weather over the weekend was absolutely gorgeous, of course, since I wasn't well enough to go outside. Just look at our beautiful view which seems even better when the sun shines.
Since then, it has been overcast and cold. Luckily, for me, there has been good TV, with the Olympics going on. Elaine has been doing a little beading and soon she will have a lovely new bracelet. No doubt there will be a picture of it in the next blog entry.

8/5/08 Today we are in Florence, OR and it has been overcast all day. At first we were staying at the Elks Club, but now we have moved to the free RV camping area at the Three Rivers Casino. They let rigs stay here 3 nights and the area is quiet and nice. They even have a big patch of grass for pets to use with a poop bag dispenser right in front of it, and a garbage can for the filled bags! Elaine is in the casino because she says we have to "pay our camping fees", but so far in 2 sessions she has only been winning. Sure hope it continues!
The last time we posted was from Newport where our last days there were enriched by a visit from Lou Stoetzer and Judy Farrow, friends from Park Sierra. They had dinner with us at the Eagles Club the night before we moved down to Waldport. Prior to their arrival, we did more exploring of the Newport area, visiting the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse and looking over the Yaquina Bay Bridge.

In Waldport we set up at the Moose Lodge where they even provided electricity for a donation of $5/night and once again we had a very friendly welcome. Our crab traps were collapsed under our rig, so we put together three of them and did some crabbing ASAP. I wish I could say that our time in Waldport was wildly successful in the crab-catching department, but it wasn't. We only put our traps in off the docks, because we didn't want to go through the hassle of setting up our inflatable boat until we get to Winchester Bay where we will stay a long while. Mostly we were catching a lot of seaweed, but we did manage to get 6 keepers in 2 days so we had a nice crab dinner one evening. Saturday we put our traps in and then went with Lou to Yachats to look around some art galleries and have a fish and chips lunch. The day was sunny but the wind came up and by the time we went to get our traps, the waves were crashing over the dock, soaking our shoes and pants, and we didn't get a single crab - not even any small ones were in our traps. It was too rough for even the crabs to be out!
Because we have been working hard to get in better shape, we did a nice hike at Cape Perpetua on our drive down here from Waldport, and another one yesterday at Sutton Campground in the nearby Suislaw National Forest. Here is the view from the top of the Cape Perpetua Hike:

The visitor's parking area at Cape Perpetua is located near a rocky area with a lot of tidepools and a big chasm in it called the Devil's Churn. Here it is:

On our drive here we stopped at a lookout to take this picture of the Heceta Head Lighthouse:

The day we drove down the coast was sunny and beautiful so we had great sea and coast views. Yesterday, on our hike, we stopped at an area where they are preserving habitat for an unusual plant called Darlingtonia. Here is a picture of lots of them in a bog - their favorite habitat.

These plants entice insects to enter their hoods and then they eventually end up falling into an acidic secretion at the bottom where they die and provide food for the plant.
In a few days we will settle in at the marina in Winchester Bay and then the serious crabbing will begin!