{"id":12,"date":"2008-02-17T22:13:38","date_gmt":"2008-02-18T06:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.redalderranch.com\/?p=12"},"modified":"2008-02-17T22:13:38","modified_gmt":"2008-02-18T06:13:38","slug":"county-line-park-to-skamokawa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.redalderranch.com\/?p=12","title":{"rendered":"County Line Park to Skamokawa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today, I took the day off from bashing my knuckles working on the car and went kayaking. Originally, Karl and Andrew and I were going to go to Ilwaco, but Karl bowed out and so we went with a revised plan instead. Andrew&#8217;s old friend Neil came along and brought with him Annette and Jay. We started out at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.co.cowlitz.wa.us\/publicworks\/parks\/countylinepark.htm\">County Line Park<\/a>, named for it&#8217;s being near the county line, of course. The plan was to paddle from here downriver to Skamokawa, about 16 miles away. <\/p>\n<p>I took a ton of pictures, but most were pretty washed out from the bright sunny day, or blurred beyond use from water on the lens. Oh well. A couple of the blurry ones were kind of cool, so I kept them.<\/p>\n<p>\n<center><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2060\/2273735186_fef4224dfd.jpg\" alt=\"waves and splashes\" \/><br \/>\n<\/center>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>We stopped on White&#8217;s Island, just upstream from Puget Island so that Andrew could check on the <a href=\"http:\/\/identify.whatbird.com\/obj\/691\/_\/Horned_Lark_(enthymia)_Breeding_Male.aspx\">horned lark<\/a> population that he has been monitoring there for years. They have not been so happy with all the new dredge spoils dumped on top of their nesting grounds by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usace.army.mil\/\">Army Corps of Engineers<\/a>, but if it weren&#8217;t for the Corps, there wouldn&#8217;t even be a White&#8217;s Island, so what can you do?<\/p>\n<p>While Andrew and Jay went for a quick hike, I wandered on the beach looking at all the flotsam and jetsam, and I found more evidence that <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Irony\">irony<\/a> is alive and well.<\/p>\n<p>\n<center><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2419\/2273734342_1ab3684c63.jpg\" alt=\"irony\" \/><br \/>\n<\/center>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Zero garbage, indeed!<\/p>\n<p>We stopped for lunch on this little beach, tucked away in a corner, and out of the east wind. This beach is covered with gravel deposits from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.idahogeology.org\/iceagefloods\/iafidesc.html\">Missoula Floods<\/a>, thousands of years ago. Andrew found several pieces of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mashell.com\/~estrauss\/pwoodfx.html\">petrified wood<\/a> while we were sitting there.<\/p>\n<p>\n<center><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2081\/2272937523_cbefe4c835.jpg\" alt=\"lunch\" \/><br \/>\n<\/center>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Now the outgoing tide was starting to pick up nicely and after lunch we practically flew along the basalt cliffs, past several waterfalls, to Cathlamet, where there are a number of boats of all kinds tied up at the old working waterfront. This craft appeared here a couple of years ago, and I had a Chinese couple on a tour that fall who translated the characters on the side and told me that they meant &#8220;Lucky Star&#8221;. She doesn&#8217;t look so lucky anymore, or maybe she is just lucky to still be afloat. She looks like an old <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Long-line_fishing\">longliner<\/a>, and has such a pleasing shape.<\/p>\n<p>\n<center><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2334\/2272963723_8d527673d7.jpg\" alt=\"\"lucky star\"\" \/><br \/>\n<\/center>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\n<center><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2414\/2273755434_61888d456b.jpg\" alt=\"number 37\" \/><br \/>\n<\/center>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>We really lucked out on the weather, as it was sunny and almost warm at times, and what wind we had was at our backs. We got to Skamokawa a little before 4 PM, about 5 hours and 15 minutes from when we launched. A very nice day!<\/p>\n<p>\n<center><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2171\/2273754556_f7e5c6f759.jpg\" alt=\"kayakers\" \/><br \/>\n<\/center>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today, I took the day off from bashing my knuckles working on the car and went kayaking. Originally, Karl and Andrew and I were going to go to Ilwaco, but Karl bowed out and so we went with a revised plan instead. Andrew&#8217;s old friend Neil came along and brought with him Annette and Jay. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[44,38,36,39,8,35,42,43,34,405,41,411,37,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.redalderranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.redalderranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.redalderranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.redalderranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.redalderranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.redalderranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.redalderranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.redalderranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.redalderranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}