Photography, Travel
A Girls’ Road Trip to Bandon Beach, River Otters, Pelicans, Norwegian Chowder, and a Concert amongst the Grape Vines
My week in photos
After returning from Mount Ranier National Park last week, where my sister and I partook in an astrophotography workshop, we picked up my best friend, Rebecca, at the Portland airport and headed out for a “girls’ road trip” to Bandon Beach, Oregon.
Loaded up with enough hot chocolate, Baileys, wine, Oregon blackberries and other goodies to last for far longer than we planned to be away, we piled all of our camera gear, puffy coats (it’s cold on the coast) and clothes into my sister’s Subaru and pointed the car towards the southern Oregon coast.
We stopped along the way for a lovely lunch of fresh salmon and a glass of wine before continuing the six-hour journey.
We had rented a house right on the beach. We were so lucky to get it because it was, literally, the last house available on the water for the summer. The highlight of the house, in my opinion, was the two levels of decks, where, when we weren’t walking the beach, we spent most of our time.
The sun was just beginning to dip down towards the sea when we arrived, so I grabbed my camera and headed out for a few quick snaps.
The next morning, we climbed aboard a little zodiac boat for whale watching. Apparently a mother and baby Gray Whale have been frequenting the local waters, but we didn't see them. The wind had really picked up, so even if they had been there, it’s likely that we wouldn't have seen their flukes (the spouts of water they exhale when they come to the surface).
But, we did see lots of cormorants and pelicans.
We were even lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a mother and baby River Otter. Our captain had been keeping an eye out for them for the last couple of weeks and he said that the babies had about doubled in size since he first spotted them.
And, nearby, a Sea Otter popped his head up out of the water to check us out.
After our little expedition, we headed over to the “Crazy Norwegian Fish House” for chowder. The welcome sign reminded me of being in Norway two summers ago and eating at a little restaurant in Flam.
After our photography workshop last week, I’ve been a bit excited about long exposure photography and I decided to try it out with the sunset. This was shot from our balcony. This was shot with my Nikon Z7II and a 24–200mm lens at ƒ16 for 1.3 seconds.
The next morning, we strolled along the other side of the beach, snapping photos and just taking in the beauty of where we were. The seastacks, sedimentary towers of stone, are continually eroding into the sea and morph themselves into the most interesting shapes.
I loved the reflection of the sky in the water in the following photo.
On the way back, we spotted this little “dragon” that someone had made on the beach.
That evening, we dined on our balcony and ended our meal with a little “chocolate plate,” from a local shop.
And then, a little visitor arrived. We fed him a few crumbs of bread before he flew off.
Back in Portland, we attended an outdoor piano concert at Stoller Winery. Arti Shapiro, from NPR, did a guest performance for one song. He was quite good!
The folks running the show encouraged us all to wander the field near the vineyards and “feel the music,” which was pretty entertaining given the sheer number of attendees who had quite obviously “partaken” in Oregon’s legal marijuana.
This is Rebecca’s and my attempt at “creative expression.”
It was such a lovely setting, all blue skies and vineyards. They provided headphones for us so that we could hear the music better.
It was such a photogenic week. I’ve started the big project of sorting through and processing the thousands of photos I shot. Now that I’m back home, I’m looking forwards to sharing some of the time lapse and astrophotography shots with you.
I hope that you all had lovely weeks. It’s so fun to share about the week and to read about so many other photographers’ weeks around the world.
As always, thank you Dennett for the “week of photos” challenge. My story went a little long this week, because of my travels, so I’m just publishing it in my little pub, Butterfly Dreams, which is a place for my musings and photographs, rather than in SNAPSHOTS where you will find the rest.
You might want to check out a few of the others who participate:
Dennett Anne Bonfert Eileen Vorbach Lisa Bolin Tracy Aston David Wade Chambers Mia Verita Kim Zuch Barbara Radisavljevic LensAfield Barbara Dalton Sasha Meyer Susan Alison Diana Lotti Barbara Dalton K. Barrett June Nguyen Juan O. Aguilera Shruthi Sundaram and more…
Erika Burkhalter is a yogi, neurophilosopher, cat-mom, photographer, and lover of travel and nature, spreading her love and amazement for Mother Earth’s glories, one photo, poem or story at a time. (MS Neuropsychology, MA Yoga Studies).
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Photos and story ©Erika Burkhalter. All rights reserved.
