Darn.... there for a few minutes I thought I had lost a whole day. Just turns out that yesterday was rainy pretty much the whole time, so there wasn't much going on that was memorable. I did end up going out to an afternoon movie just to get out for a while, but it was otherwise kind of quiet. Not boring... cuz I'm seldom bored, too many books, movies, puzzles and hobby kits to do, but rather quiet all the same.
   The movie was 'Dracula, the untold story' or some such title. It was actually pretty good in a 'Guys Night Out at the Movies' kind of way. In other words, it was pretty much filled with gratuitous sex and violence, with maybe way to much of the later and not enough of the former. Still it was an interesting take on the Dracula story.
   Otherwise, I spent most of the day reading  various books and magazines and cooked a couple of meals instead of just making sandwiches. Over all it was a nice day for me.
   Still raining today.... all day.... hard! But I had a reservation to go on a train ride down in the town of Wheeler at noon, so I was up early and on the road south by 10:00. Got to Wheeler in plenty of time and spent some of the extra talking to some friends before the train ride. The train today was going to start there in town and then proceed up the Nehalem River for 15 or so miles. In charge of the motive power was a nice little 2-6-2 Pacific type steam locomotive with 6 assorted passenger cars following behind. Because of the rain and wind the open air cars were out of the question for me, but I found a wonderful heavy weight passenger car from the early 1920's that worked just fine. With only 6-8 passengers in it, probably because there was no heat, there were plenty of empty seats to choose from.
   It was really a beautiful ride up the river with lots of colored leaves on the trees and the deep shades of green from the moss covered spruce, ferns and blackberry plants. I did take a few pictures from the train while moving, but not all that many. To get a good picture you had to quickly raise the window and take a couple of shots in a hurry, otherwise the rain blew in with all the wind. The train ran for nearly an hour up river before it stopped at a siding so the engine could run around and hook on to what had been the tail end before. Another hour brought us back to Wheeler and the end of the trip. By that time the wind was blowing the rain pretty much sideways across Nehalem Bay.
   Lucky for me the rain actually stopped for about 20 minutes on my drive back north so I managed to pull over a couple of times and get some shots of the ocean and the breaking waves. When I got to the town of Manzanita I was even able to pull into the state park there and walk on the beach for about 15 minutes. The waves were really crashing on the shores and out on some of the rocks just off the beach. Not sure if any of the pictures will turn out, but if they do I'll post a few of them in a day or two. For now though, here are a couple of photo's from the other day when I went over to Cape Disappointment and walked out to the lighthouse's there.

Cape Disappointment and North Head Lighthouse's

Oct 23, 2014 

Cape Disappointment Lighthouse. I took a lot of pictures of this one, but this is the only view that I really liked.

North Head Lighthouse. I like the looks and proportions of this one. Note the nearly clear skies.... that didn't last for very long.

It still needs some much needed repairs and painting, but it still looks pretty good.

brk*