Short Trips
Given the many trips to the Washington Coast I've written about in the past few years, I thought I had covered it all -- from Ilwaco to Cape Flattery. But for some reason Grayland never showed up on my radar screen.
All I knew was that Grayland was somewhere between Westport and Long Beach and was famous for cranberry bogs and razor clams.
By Jeff Larsen | April 28, 2005
Whether it's thousands of shorebirds rising and twisting in perfect sync above the Grays Harbor mudflats or a lone Eurasian thrush lost in an Olympia subdivision, the same chorus of hushed human voices fills the air.
It's a universal reaction — a long, communal inward gasp of awe at the unexpected beauty of the natural world.
"I don't know what the deep magic is," said Bill Tweit, a leading regional birder. "It's something about flight, but it's also something about color. Just the magic of life and creation."
By Diane Brooks | April 28, 2005
Take a step back in time for an afternoon or a week at Browns Point Lighthouse, a National Historic Register 1903 lighthouse and Keeper's Cottage across Commencement Bay from downtown Tacoma. On Saturday from 1-5 p.m., Points Northeast Historical Society docents lead a tour of lighthouse buildings as part of Pierce County Heritage Month, and if you really love the place, it's available for rental for one-week tours of keeper duty.
By Madeline McKenzie | April 28, 2005
Hike of the Week
Many hikers believe rivers are most scenic during the transitional seasons, and spring is exploding along the Cedar River. In April, the Cedar River Trail is an inspirational poem of woodland flowers, gnarled fruit trees with branches drooping with blossoms, moss, ferns, mature evergreens, vine maple and towering cottonwoods.
By Karen Sykes | April 28, 2005
DEMING -- Standing in a hard, cold rain, it's hard to envision that at some point millions of years closer to the dawn of time, it was warm enough for palm trees to grow here.
But as certain as the sunrise, we're looking at a giant fossil of a palm leaf in a dirt bank in the forest, and holding smaller specimens of fern fronds and other flora.
By Greg Johnston | April 28, 2005
TROUTDALE, Ore. — There's a "new" motoring adventure for visitors to Oregon.
It is the Mount Hood Scenic Byway — a 105-mile-long route from Troutdale, just east of Portland, past Mount Hood to the Columbia River Gorge and the orchards of the Hood River Valley.
The byway's network of highways and country roads has been in place for years, although now it's being pieced together — officially — as a collection of scenic and historic treasures.
By Stanton H. Patty | April 28, 2005
Location: Kenmore.
Length: About a quarter mile.
Level of difficulty: From the parking lot, a short bark trail leads south through the wetlands (can be wet after rains) to a level, paved trail. A short, paved side loop next to the stream leads up a small hill and then down to casual dirt trails that extend into the wetlands.
By Cathy McDonald | April 28, 2005
