Back on Track

Literally. I walked 3+ miles on the track, rowed for 20 minutes, and lifted weights for another 20 minutes this morning — just about what I was doing regularly before we left for our 10 day trip to Santa Rosa. After my workout I came home and took an hour nap; I was exhausted. Hopefully, it will go better tomorrow.

Somehow we managed to dodge most of the fires and smoke blanketing the west on our trip. Our first stops were at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge and the Colusa National Wildlife Preserve. Birding wasn’t especially good, particularly at Colusa, where they were just beginning to fill the fields with water, but we did get to see some birds we seldom see around home.

At the motel we saw a small group of firefighters who had just mopped up earlier fires nearby and were headed north to fires in the Trinity Alps. There were billboards thanking firefighters posted everywhere we went on our trip. The waitress where we stopped in Middleton said that a week before flames surrounded the community. Little did we know that a week later the place would be destroyed by another, even worse fire.

Obviously I spent far too much time riding around in a car, though I walked a fair distance on at least three of the days I was in Santa Rosa, including a beautiful walk at Bodega Bay. I managed to walk around Spring Lake twice and get a few shots. We spent one day at the Heritage Fair, where I got a chance to take shots of the award-winning Dahlias.

I spent a lot of time sampling local wines and eating excellent food. The blistering temperatures limited the distance I wanted to walk. It was much cooler at the Avenue of the Giants in the Redwoods, but I wasn’t thrilled when we were greeted by fog, rain and mid-seventy temperatures at the Oregon Coast on the way home as I’d hoped to get some late afternoon/sunset shots there. We still would have stayed overnight at the coast if we could have found a room, but apparently a weekend in mid-September is very popular on the Southern Oregon Coast and every motel we saw was full.

Instead we drove inland and spent the night at Cottage Grove. Running early, we decided to visit the Swan Island Dahlias. I really didn’t see too many dahlias than the ones I see at the Pt. Defiance Dahlia Garden, but there was certainly a lot more than I see there.

It’s going to take me awhile to sort through all the pictures I took, but hopefully I can get started on that tomorrow, once we have settled back in.

3 thoughts on “Back on Track”

  1. I’m looking forward to your photos from this California journey. Your timing was really good for avoiding the massive wildfire in Lake County. It’s been quite a fiery summer.

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