Yaquina Head Lighthouse

(once again, I can't post my own pictures until I get home, so these borrowed pictures from Google Images will have to do! Isn't this a beautiful print to the left? I love how the clouds were rendered!)

The Lighthouse at Yaquina Head in Newport

Today, Christian and I went to the Yaquina Head Lighthouse in Newport. We definitely got our excercise! First, after taking a bunch of pictures outside the lighthouse (and discovering that his pants were on backwards when a nice guy was taking a picture of us) we were able to climb the inside of the lighthouse all the way to the top, but then, we hiked down the side of the cliffs there with the trail stairways and saw a whole bunch of seals. I took tons of pictures, but I have no idea how well you'll be able to see the seals. I could kick myself for not bringing my super-duper ZOOM lens! Ugh!

Today is the first day of our trip that the clouds were pretty much non-existent and the sun made an appearance all day. Sure, that's a good thing for the locals and if I lived here, I wouldn't have minded so much (especially since it was breezy and in the 60s!), but it would have been nice to have the cloudiness still, considering what I have to return home to in a few days. :-( Still, I'll take a sunny day in the 60s in June over the concrete heatlamp I have to return to soon.

Here is a shot of what the surrounding area looks like (loved all the flowers! Beautiful!), and the rocks down below that we climbed down to on the trail stairway where we saw many seals chilling on the rocks and a bunch swimming at the water. I hope when I download my own pictures, I'll have some impressive shots. *crossing my fingers* I took tons of pictures of seals poking their heads above in the water, but I hope they don't come back looking like rocks or shadows in the water. I'm still kicking myself for forgetting my kick-butt zoom lens at home!!!

Below is a pretty realisitic shot of the stairway inside the lighthouse. It was quite an adventure and Christian seemed to enjoy it. He barely made the cut at just above 42" to be able to climb the stairwell. However, Christian apparently didn't make the cut in not aggravating the guide up at the top by the light. Christian said (in his gadget-obsessed fashion) that the light shouldn't be blinking. He said it was "broken" ebcause it was blinking. Before I even had a chance to explain to Christian why the light blinks, the guide got very angry and defensive and practically yelled at Christian that the light wasn't broken. He really overreacted to a 5yo boy's comment. You can tell the other tourists up there at the top were aggravated by the way the guide reacted to Christian's comments about the light. I decided to leave a comment about it on the comment card on my way out. Don't get me wrong, I know my son is a handful, but the reaction to him was not warranted. Christian did a good job following directions and not going where he wasn't supposed to. He just "followed directions" and "did well" in his high-energy ways.

Aren't the flowers gorgeous? Between the green, flowers, cliffs, blue waters and seals (and yes, the lighthouse despite the grumpy guide) it is pretty close to paradise here!