No Mount Rainier this morning. It’s in there somewhere behind the fog and clouds, I know this because I was here yesterday. What I do have is three deer in the parking lot and a cup of coffee and a morning that doesn’t need anything else to justify itself.
I stayed at the National Park Inn specifically to be close to the mountain, and even with the fog sitting on everything I’m glad I did. The guy on the front porch last night had gotten a room here for $79 through some deal I couldn’t replicate. I paid considerably more for the same building. That’s travel. Sometimes the guy next to you has a coupon.
I took a few star photos with the iPhone before bed — not the kind you blow up and hang on a wall, but the kind you take because you’re standing under a sky full of them and not taking a photo would feel wrong.
The Magnet Decision
I’ve been trying to figure out what to collect from each state. A souvenir of some kind, something that accumulates over the year and becomes its own documentation of the journey. I went through options — postcards, patches, small objects — and landed on refrigerator magnets. One per state, one per national park. They’re small, they fit in any bag, they stack up into something you can display. This is the system now.
Narada Falls
I stopped at what I believe was Narada Falls — I’ll admit I wasn’t entirely sure of the name at the time and the fog wasn’t helping — and started down a very steep snow-covered path toward the water before reconsidering. Forty-degree angle, slick surface, and I would absolutely have gotten a good shot from the bottom right before landing hard on the way down. The viewing platform at the top gave me a long-exposure from above, shooting up the river with the mist in the frame. It came out or it didn’t. I’ll find out in the edit.
Frank’s Note About a Director
Frank texted me before I left on this trip to say he found my videos entertaining but they were in need of some direction. Specifically, a director. I’ll be honest, I took some personal offense at that. Then I spent the morning bumbling around a foggy national park in the snow trying to remember which waterfall I was at and admitted to myself that he had a point.
If I was being paid for this I’d have a shot list and a script and a layout of the day. Instead I pick up the camera when I feel like it and hope the edit does something useful with what I’ve gathered. That’s how the Europe series worked. That’s how the fall color series worked. I’m okay with it. But Frank wasn’t wrong.
Cannon Beach, Oregon
I made the call to skip Astoria — the aurora chase there wasn’t going to work with cloudy skies, even though the rooms overlooking the north-facing dock would have been ideal — and drove instead to Cannon Beach. State two. Oregon.
Laundry at an RV park was the first order of business, which I include because if you’re ever in Cannon Beach looking for a place to do laundry you want to know about Cannon Beach RV Resort. Nice facilities, reasonable rates, full hookup sites with fire pits and picnic tables if you’re actually in an RV. They’ll let you use the machines. There’s a pool.
Then I walked up to the Hallmark Resort front desk instead of booking online and had a conversation. Told her about my trip, showed her a few aurora shots, and she found me a room $20 below the internet rate with an ocean view. Haystack Rock just around the corner. Puffins nesting there from April through September, which I did not know.
I went down to the beach in the evening light and watched a guy fly a drone over the rock while a bald eagle worked the same airspace. He said he was just doing it for himself. I respected that.
Good dinner. Cheese and apples in the cooler for backup. The DJI Osmo Pocket 3 is performing well in the evenings and I’ve switched from GoPro to DJI Action for the car — the battery life alone makes it worth it.
Puffins in the morning, if the tide cooperates. Oregon is off to a good start.
