Remember, you never turn your back on a sunset until you’re absolutely certain there’s no more light.

The heavy clouds right at the horizon kept us from knowing whether the sun had really gone below…but it certainly was not done making its presence known!

In these last four weeks, we have spent time in four spots on the Oregon coast, from the southernmost in Brookings, to this northernmost in Tillamook.

The Lil Taxi has carried us literally from tip to tip. What a wonderful series of journeys!

The pictures in these last couple posts come from Hug Point State Park. We have enjoyed it several times in the past year or so…for its remarkable scenery, and for its convenient proximity to the parking lot!

You remember the sunset series from last year here: July 5, 2015, “Like a rock”?

This was my favorite.

You turn, go up the beach, and have a new perspective on the scene….

Here’s this year’s rocks at sunset.

We took a run up to Cannon Beach.

Well, actually, a run past the bakeries in Wheeler, the burritos at Left Coast Siesta in Manzanita, Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, and back down to the lovely stretch of beach at Hug Point State Park…near sunset.

Tillamook! Oh, you’ve heard of the place?

Our trip up the Oregon coast was because we wanted to attend the wedding in Tillamook of my father’s widow, Barbara. She had reconnected with a cherished friend from first grade!

The event was a very lovely celebration, and we enjoyed being part of it.

Even before the wedding…just minutes after we arrived at our parking site and set up the coach…we jumped in the Lil Taxi and ran up the road to the next town to check on the status of a Bald Eagle nest.

It was occupied last year at this time, and we hoped to spot at least one of the adults.

Nobody home at the nest.

It was dusk and it was soooo dim. Maybe one would be fishing in the sparking light of sunset on Tillamook Bay a block away.

Good guess.

And he or she got something….

We awoke to the prediction of a lovely day, and it looked promising.

Might it give us another shot…to shoot Thor’s Well before we left Waldport and headed north?

Ya think?

Do you see near the center of the Well a light area? Click on the photo.

It’s light reflecting off the ocean surface as it comes through a hole in the bottom/side of the Well! So, although we see some water draining down the edges of the Well from the surface up here, that hole can also bring water gushing up into the Well!

The process happens kind of like this.

I had to turn to the right a little for that last shot, because the spray from the initial explosion to the left began to rain on me!

Even as the Well recovered from the wave that came from the left, it experienced a small blow from a wave to the right…there must be another hole to it from over that way.

We could roll north from Waldport now.

Remember how Robyn spotted an eagle while we were still setting up the coach at our site in Waldport?

She spotted a second one, and the way it interacted with the first, she figured they were mates. Took her a couple days to find their nest.

I couldn’t get a useful picture of the nest…even though it was in a tree right in front of a house and the roadway had to bulge around the tree! It was waaaay up there and nicely surrounded by foliage.

But we caught dad in a nearby tree. Tried to catch him flying, but nooooo.

We’ve showed you some of the vast flat fields around Klamath Falls, that were formed by one or more volcanoes in the ancient past.

Here on the coastline, there’s more evidence of that history.

Check out this small hole…about the size of my fist…that is the end on land of a tube that obviously begins at the water’s edge. Whenever the tide is right and a wave is right….

That’s Yachats in the background. Cool town. Luna Sea Fish House. Nearest town to Thor’s Well (I bet you thought I’d forgotten that place…).

See if this picture along the coastline at this point gives any further evidence of the volcanic past.