Friday, August 30 was a great day for a little kayaking! Keith and I had scoped out the situation the day before while John and Bill were bike riding the covered bridges of Lane County over near Cottage Grove. Keith and I decided on Siltcoos River Kayaks for our kayaking adventure with John and Bill. Although it was a flat rate of $65.00 for the entire day, the river looked so inviting. John and Bill were game so we headed out to the river. Two person kayaks, a couple of vests, oars, and of course, our lunch and off we went. The shade was a nice feature, slow (like really slow) moving river with trees on each side. The guy said it was like 3 miles to the ocean.
We enjoyed 1/2 our lunch in our kayaks paralell parked by a log in the middle of the river. We were hungry. About 1/2 way down the river there was a small dam. We had to get out of our kayaks and carry them over the walk way and get back in. We caught sight of at least one otter on the other side of the dam, near where a Great Blue Heron showed us how good they are at snatching fish out of the river! It was amazing!
At the end of the three miles we entered the Pacific Ocean. O.k., barely, Joanette was a little freaked out! We weren’t allowed to get out of our kayaks, as the mouth of the Siltcoos river is a Snowy Plover breeding area. It sure was beautiful, although we didn’t get many pictures. You can’t fool around with photos or your rudder-man gets grumpy because you aren’t paying attention to what you are doing as a team!
On the way back, at the dam, we discovered there were three otters and we enjoyed watching them for a good while! We had a great day, about 4 hours and 6 miles of kayaking. Definitely worth every penny!
Saturday morning, August 31, our second full month in the books! Today is bicycling. We loaded up and traveled to Jesse Honeyman State Park and had a nice 5 mile ride around the park, over Hwy 101 to Woahink Lake. (Did I mention over Hwy 101? The climb up the overpass was grueling, gonna have to work on that!). Ended up Keith got his shorts caught up on the bike while dismounting and got quite a quadracep bruise as he landed on his cell phone in the parking lot. Crippled up now, but not a broken hip. Could have been a lot worse! John lost his wallet, could have been worse, no cash or cell phone involved. Good reason to have a picture of your driver’s license on your cell phone! And he needed a “real i.d.” anyway……
August has been great, from Grandsons to Brothers and old friends. Fun in the sun, good eats and amazing scenery!
Joiners Journey 