A Walk in the Park (Florence, OR)

I'm still not done with Newport.  Before we left, we planned to walk Beaver Creek State Natural Area.  I was hoping to see a Green Heron or two, but I guess I'll have to wait for another day to see one.  This is a good birding area, but the wetland trail is seasonal and now was not a good time.  The trail was muddy and flooded.  I did manage to see a couple of birds during the short time we were there.

I saw one Cedar Waxwing sitting at the top of a pine tree.

This little guy started following me down the trail.  I must have been close to a nest, but he wasn't making a lot of noise about it just keeping his eye on me.

 At one point, he came down to eye level and just across the trail from where I was standing.  He seemed very curious...

A little disappointed that we could not walk the trail, we stopped by Ona Beach State Park and walked along the river.  There were quite a few Chickadees hopping around in the pine trees.   

Of course, trying to get a good photo of them was quite a challenge.

We spent one day driving east of Newport on Hwy 20 then southwest on Alsea Hwy 34.  We were looking for more covered bridges.  We found two: Chitwood Bridge and Harris Bridge.  We made several stops along the way to see the river and parks.

By the way, the bushes in front of the above bridge are very ripe blackberries.  We picked a lot of them.  They were so ripe that the ones in the bottom of the little baggie we put them in had turned to mush by the time we got home.  So sweet and delicious!  My fingers were dyed purple from picking them!

I'm slowly getting caught up with all my online items.  I still have a lot of emails to answer and blogs to visit, but I'm getting there.

On The Cutting Board

In between our road trips and moving, I have finished appliquéing the petals onto the lotus quilt and all the quilting has been done.  Now, I'm ready to start the binding.  The more I work on it the more I like it.  The colors are bright yet soothing.

 Well, I better get started on the binding...
Happy Quilting!

A Whale of a Good Time (Newport, OR)

We move to Florence, OR on Thursday, 6 September.  I'm looking forward to seeing some more coastal area.  I need to do a Webshots album very soon with all the photos I have collected over the summer.

I feel like Newport actually has two downtown areas.  There is the Historic Nye Beach area with lots of access to the beach with shops, restaurants, hotels, and other services. 

Beautiful murals scattered throughout the downtown area

Then, there’s the Historic Newport Bayfront area with lots of fun attractions for the family along with shops, restaurants, the marina, and commercial fishing fleets.  You can buy fresh catch-of-the-day right off the boats.  I like both of them, but we have only visited the Bayfront area so far.  Here are some of the sights.....

Gotta scratch that itch..

Of course, my favorite part is watching the sea lions on the docks.  They were being quite loud the day we were there.  We could hear their barks echoing down the street.

Barking Sea Lions

Funny...no one argued with the big guy when he came out of the water and said this is my spot.

Lots of battle scars on this one

I was here first!  No, I was!

More sea lions on the jetty...

I wonder if they planned on the whale's mural to look like it was doing a trick...

A whale of a mural

A great view of McCullough's Yaquina Bay Bridge in the background from the marina

No marina is complete without a couple of sea birds.....

Immature Seagull

On The Cutting Board

I did not like the last photos of this Lotus quilt so I took it outside to try again.  The only problem is the dense shade of our site, but the colors look a lot better compared to the last ones taken under the LED lights.

I'm thinking of moving the flower petals in more.  They look a little scattered right now.

Instead of adding the floating petals across the top like in the Purple Lotus, I'm thinking that a 3 to 5 petals and leaves in the corner would look better.  I do plan to add the stem at the bottom like before and a couple of more leaves.

I'm almost done with the Gift Shop sign.  I'm quite happy with the results.  The open sign/tag is almost done.  I want to add some buttons to the top and I still have the fall leaf to add as well.

Happy Quilting!