Christmas week and a row boat

Well, we have started the much awaited Christmas week on the southern Oregon coast and just barely got past the weekend without the need of a row boat.

A late week and early weekend storm dumped 7.5" of rain on this little town and put most coastal rivers over their banks.  Several highway slumps and land slides along the coast highway, in addition to areas of high water, made travel difficult.  We didn't go far from home however, with only a short trip to Bandon and back on Friday.

Today was dry but overcast and still unseasonably warm.  More damp weather is forecast for the week ahead, but nothing looks travel restrictive in the area.

Juanita has been busy making fabric Christmas tree ornaments and has given a few to friends.  I would have helped out with keeping our two Beagles busy and exercised, but managed to injure some muscles in a sensitive part of my body requiring limited mobility for the best part of last week.

My dear wife ordered me to get the bodily damage checked out with a doctor on Friday.  I was assured by the medic that my injury wouldn't require serious intervention for healing, but he wasn't at all happy about some other issues and has requested tests to get me all sorted out.  I'll return to the good doc next month for a follow up.

Last week I joined several other members of the Port Orford Amateur Radio Club in the task of repairing the 2 meter repeater antenna mast that was damaged by the big November wind storm in town.  The antenna is located on top of the town's water tank and located in a place that my old body can't access.  I volunteered to document the repair activity and used my DJI Phantom 2 Vision quadcopter to provide a unique perspective.

I processed the video clips from the copter using Adobe Lightroom and Premiere Pro CC software and posted the results on YouTube.  At the end of the repair process, I made a couple of panorama rotations with the airborne camera showing most of Port Orford and ocean front.

We joined a group of local friends for a Christmas holiday meal on Saturday night.  Our husband and wife hosts both celebrated their birthdays that evening...we had a great time kidding Harry about his child bride with the same day and month of birth.

A busy holiday week lies ahead for our little family.  We'll tell you more about our activities in the next blog entry.

We want to wish all of our readers, family members and friends a very Merry Christmas.  Please stay safe everyone!

Christmas lights at Shore Acres State Park

As promised several days ago, I have completed and posted the video about last night's visit to Shore Acres State Park for the annual Christmas light show.  We really lucked out!  Clear skies, no wind, a mild temperature and a bonus full moon made for a perfect evening at the ocean shore state park.

I can't even imagine the work that goes into setting up the 300,000 LED lights every year.  The show draws nearly 50,000 visitors during the month of December.  That's an amazing number considering the fact that weather on this part of the coast is often not fit for man or beast at this time of year.

Shore Acres is located on at an especially scenic section of the Oregon coastline near the small town of Charleston and west of Coos Bay.  It is about 65 miles from our home park location.  Spectacular flowers are featured in the park for most of the year.  Spring tulips,  rhododendrons and later roses provide a year long colorful display for shoreline visitors.

Nearby Cape Arago and the Simpson Reef with thousands of sea lions shouting from rocks provide for additional tourist enjoyment.  Shore Acres is also my favorite place to view and photograph huge Pacific waves hitting high rocky cliffs.  I hope to show this in future blogs this winter.

Friday was shopping day in Coos Bay and North Bend.  We took care of monthly purchases at Walmart and made special stops to pick up my favorite blend of Starbucks coffee (Komodo Dragon), get some RV cleaning products from Porter's RV and to score a couple of Dungeness crabs for Friday dinner.  Crab season just began on the Pacific Northwest coast on Monday.  Crab boat operators are already noticing a rapid decline during the first days of the season, which might not bode well for later availability or reasonable prices.  We might just have to buy crab tags and get our own from the Port Orford dock.

After a fine day, clouds are beginning to roll in ahead of the next series of storms due to hit the coast this week.  A new warning for 80 MPH winds has just been posted for Wednesday.  The storm is also expected to be very wet. 

We'll check back in with you soon and let you know if we have kept our heads above high water..........

Just relaxin' in the rain

Except for one dry day this past Sunday, we have had pretty much daily rain since my last post.  Not that we're complaining.  We love the rain!

Having said that, the 7.32" of "moisture" that fell on Thanksgiving Day and Friday was a bit over the top, even for this part of the country.  Coastal vegetation and local wild critters are thriving in all the wet stuff however, and annual rainfall totals are approaching normal.

Temperatures have been fairly warm by late Fall standards.  We saw only one morning last week with frost on the pumpkin and other low temperatures have been in the upper 40's to low 50's.

The Thanksgiving meal at the RedFish Restaurant in Port Orford was outstanding...and my dear wife didn't have to cook or wash dishes.  All four courses were over the top, the service was exceptional and we loved watching the raging weather from our window side table.

Beautiful clear blue skies on Sunday just called out for a flight or two with my DJI Phantom 2 Vision aerial photography platform, so I took her outside to play.  I had a great time processing about 20 minutes of video into a short YouTube tour of our home RV park in Port Orford.

I still have some work to do on controlling the yaw motion of the flying machine but have made improvements with the video processing features using Adobe Premiere Pro CC.  This geezer is learning more all the time...almost enough to be dangerous.

We have spent the days around the holiday just relaxing, reading, quilting, walking the two active hounds and dealing with a few rolling home maintenance items.  The RV toilet I ordered online before the holiday arrived on Friday.  I just replaced the old unit with the same model and the installation was simple, quick and fairly inexpensive.

Just in time for the next full moon, Saturday is forecast to be clear and dry and a good opportunity to visit the annual Christmas light display at Shore Acres State Park near Charleston, Oregon.  I am planning to take my GoPro Hero 4 Silver camera along and might be able to share with you an interesting video of our excursion.

Check back with us on Sunday or Monday for the Christmas lights................