Jeni's Coast Trip 2018

Took my annual trip out to the coast a few weeks ago.  I can only manage to get 2.5 days free from work, so I have to make the most of it in a very short time!

Everything worked out well.

Day 1, I got to Ocean Shores and my first stop is always to the beach!  You can drive on some of them here, so I run right out there first thing.

Not much to see here except water and sand, but look at that blue sky!  A rare sight here in Washington in Sept.

Next stop to the little gallery for a meeting, where my jewelry work is displayed.

Hung out in Ocean Shores for several hours then headed north to Moclips to my condo rental.
It's a run down town and the condos look like apartments from the outside, but the inside is beautiful!

These are one bedroom units with a full kitchen, perfect for me as I like to eat in.
Here is the view from my place.

This is looking north up the coast.

Day 2.  Next morning, up early and out the door.  It's an hour and 15 minutes to my next destination.  The road goes up and around the Quinault Indian Reservation and back out to the coast.
My goal was to drive to my furthest north point and work my way back.  Also wanted to get to Ruby Beach early before the masses.

Arrived there at 9am.  Perfect, only three cars ahead of me and no one on the beach while I took these photos.

The best shots will be converted to black and white for sales.  This is my latest goal, to return to my first love, black and white.

So the first shot is from the path leading down to the beach.
The second shot is where I set up my tripod and experimented with infrared shots for about an hour (not included here) but this is a good vantage point to see that end of the beach.
The last one is one of the reasons I visit this beach.  The beach is literally covered with these flat stones and people stack them everywhere, they make for some lovely still life images.

I talked with a couple people out walking the beach that morning and learned there was a deceased whale further south so I took a walk down there to see it.
Not pictured here!  Not pretty.  Grey whale that's been dead a while.  I took some ID type photos of it to send to OrcaNetwork in case they hadn't recorded it's passing yet (they are all tagged or identified to keep track of populations and migrations).

Next to the Big Cedar tree.  This is just off the highway.  It blew down several years ago so it's not as majestic as it once was, but worth the visit.  I guess I should have taken a picture with a human in it so you could see the size.  Just imagine a person would be about half the height of the fallen piece in the second photo.

Jim and I didn't go here last year, but we did see a big cedar at Lake Quinault.

Next stop Beach 4.  This is one of my favorites because it has an amazing driftwood bridge and numerous strange rock formations carved by time and water.

During the smelt run this place is covered with birds.  One year I got a great photo of a guy using a scoop net with tons of shore birds and pelicans flying overhead.
Another year I was out here in mid October and the water was rough and high, intimidating and beautiful!
Fairly quiet on this day with yet another clear and sunny sky, still a treasure to experience.

I'm so grateful to still be able to visit a place in my lifetime that has not been changed by man.  This is still as much an untouched raw beauty as it was when I saw it 50 years ago.  Only time and water and weather have been the shaping elements.

Day 3 back to Ocean Shores for a run out to the end of the Spit.  I have wanted to find an old restaurant and marina that Mom and I used to frequent when I was a kid.  Finally found it!  Run down and abandoned, but still there.

There was public beach access nearby so I took a walk.  Found a few fun old pilings and beach grasses to photograph and met a guy who had just seen his first eagle, fun!
I finally found the pelicans too!  Brown pelicans were never seen here until about 20 years ago, or less.  Here I could only get their silhouette as they flew past me.

 
So I took over 300 photos, all in RAW or Fine formats so I could convert to Tiff's and edit accordingly.  I'm working on the best of the best which is always a much lower number, and will register that collection to Copyright.  Next step will be to upload to my website for sales.
These photos are highly compressed for the blog, so don't think I don't know how washed out they may look, lol.  

I have short range goals to start promoting my work locally again and commit to staying black and white.

I am almost sure I'll be buying a new camera for my birthday - so in lieu of gifts - send cash!!

Hope you all enjoyed the tour.