Lori's Travels

Overnight on Thursday, a dark and very quiet night resulted in a really great night’s sleep for both Stephanie and I, which made us really happy. We woke up at 5am to get ready for a birding trip with a guide named Alex who was going to pick us up at 5:30 to go and see the Resplendent Quetzal, a spectacular bird that many birders come to Costa Rica to see. Alex drove us down into the valley below Miriam’s several kilometers to a known spot for the quetzals. When we got there, all three of us were unhappy to see a crowd of people on the road already looking at the birds. But Alex parked a ways away from them and found both the male and female quetzals for us through his spotting scope. And they are beautiful birds! Google them to see a photo of the gorgeous long-tailed turquoise and red male.

Alex was a really great guide who spoke good English, was very knowledgeable about birds, plants and the area, and had lived in San Gerardo de Dota for more than 20 years. Plus, he was patient with our slow and mistaken Spanish as we used it for much of the conversations. He answered all our questions about birds, nature and living in Costa Rica.

We spent 2.5 hours birding in the valley and finding lots of birds that neither of us had seen before. Along the way, we also saw a small group of horses being herded on the road by a man in a pickup truck, which looked strange but worked well. They were being brought from their pasture to a place where tourists would be riding them on trails through the forest, according to Alex.

Stephanie and I also wanted to see birds in the páramo, the highest part of the mountains at about 12,000 feet of elevation. Alex had told us that viewing would be best there in late morning after the clouds burned off. So we ate breakfast with Alex at Miriam’s restaurant and then he drove us up to the páramo near Cerró de la Muerte. There we saw the Volcano Junco (a bird) and a couple others plus great views of the surrounding forested mountains and the high-altitude, low-growing vegetation. He returned us to Miriam’s about noon and after we thanked for a wonderful morning of birding, we bought ice cream bars at the mini market that Alex and his wife Liliana (daughter of Miriam) run.

We then spent the afternoon relaxing and talking in front of our cabin, reviewing the birds we had seen. For dinner, we walked up the hill to Los Colibríes Pizzaria, run by a friendly man named Victor who we had met the day before when we made the evening’s reservation. Los Colibríes means the hummingbirds in Spanish, and Victor had created a flower garden with a feeder to attract the birds in front of the restaurant. So we sat at a table next to the windows overlooking the garden to enjoy beer and pizza while watching the hummers. It was a very pleasant dinner.

As we walked back down the hill in the dark to our cabin, we wanted to spot Dusky Nightjar birds, owls, or other night creatures using our flashlights, but disappointedly we saw nothing. Back in the cabin, we heard what sounded like an owl outside. So we rushed outside with binoculars and flashlights to see if we could find the owl, only to encounter a man who apologetically said that he had been playing an owl recording to see if he could attract one to the area of our cabins. It was a funny moment since he had attracted us instead of the bird.

My friend Stephanie and I have arrived in beautiful Costa Rica for a trip focused on birding and nature that we started planning over a year ago. We flew in to San José yesterday evening, coming via Los Angeles, on Alaska Airlines flights that were full but on time and trouble-free. My checked bag even appeared on the airport baggage carousel relatively quickly.

We traveled to the San José hotel via taxi and Stephanie had a good conversation with the taxi driver, mostly in Spanish, along the way. I was too tired to function in Spanish because I hadn’t slept well the night before, so I was happy she could carry on the conversation. We spent the night at Hotel de la Rosa de America after a late dinner at a nearby restaurant recommended by the taxi driver.

We woke up early this morning to singing tropical birds and were excited to go out into the hotel gardens to see them.

The hotel breakfast buffet started at 7am and we enjoyed gallo pinto, scrambled eggs, fresh fruit, coffee cake and guava juice. About 9:40 our driver came from Costa Rica Drivers. Rolando greeted us and loaded our suitcases into the SUV car for the 2.5-hour drive into the mountain village of San Gerardo de Dota.

During the congested drive through San José and into the Talamanca Mountains, both Stephanie and I conversed in a mixture of Spanish and English with the very friendly and knowledgeable Rolando. We arrived at Miriam’s Quetzals restaurant and cabins about noon and we invited Rolando to have lunch with us there. Just outside the restaurant, on a deck overlooking a forested valley shrouded in clouds, were several bird feeders that attracted a swarm of hummingbirds and other birds. We learned that Rolando loves to watch birds too, so before and after eating, we enjoyed the birds together with a couple other groups of birdwatchers and photographers.

Our cabin for the next three nights was 500 meters down a steep and winding road, where Rolando drove us and Liliana, an employee of Miriam’s. She checked us into the cabin and explained everything we needed to know.

It was cool and showery in the cloud forest, so we added a layer of clothes and then explored the area, finding some great birds along the way.

Then we walked up the hill to the restaurant about 4:30, enjoyed fruit batidos (milk shakes) while watching and photographing the birds on the deck. When it began to get dark, about 6pm, we went inside and ordered a delicious dinner of trout in passion fruit sauce with French fries. Afterwards, we returned down the hill in the dark, guided by our flashlights.

Today, on the last morning of this short road trip, we ate breakfast in a classy cafe in Seaview about a mile from the hotel. It was called 42nd Street Cafe and one of their specialties was a jam of marionberries, oranges, strawberries and walnuts that Dave really appreciated. I enjoyed a wedge of quiche with a side of fresh fruit. We took off from there toward Ilwaco and our first state park of the day, Cape Disappointment.

We wanted to see the Cape Disappointment lighthouse that overlooks the Columbia River bar, so we hiked a trail that took us uphill to the high point it sits on. Along the way, we saw a Coast Guard station with the boats and personnel who rescue boats in trouble in this dangerous area. At the end of the trail was a spectacular view of the huge waves breaking at the mouth of the Columbia River and around the two jetties that attempt to shelter the ships from the worst of the ocean swells.

The lighthouse, constructed in 1856, wasn’t open to the public nor was the Coast Guard lookout that’s used once an hour to monitor bar conditions, but even so, it was a very interesting place. We watched a huge Manson hopper dredge ship actively dredging the main channel plus several identical Coast Guard boats out on training trips, dropping and retrieving floating man-shaped “buoys”. About 10:30, two Coast Guardsmen came to do their observations and then answered our questions about what we were seeing out there. We learned the CG boats were conducting boat handling training as part of a 2-week class for CG personnel. The dredge, which is probably contracted by the Army Corps of Engineers’ Portland District, dumps the sediment it collects along the sides of the area, next to the spits. And the CG has to go out and rescue someone every 2-3 days or so. We spent quite a while there enjoying the view and the beautiful weather. It wasn’t even windy.

Then it was on to the next park, Fort Columbia Historical State Park. Fort Columbia was active from 1896 to 1947 and still holds several military buildings built between 1904 and World War II. We didn’t go in the buildings, some of which can be rented overnight, but instead enjoyed another great view of the mouth of the Columbia River from its high vantage point.

We proceeded over the Astoria-Megler Bridge that crosses the Columbia, going into Oregon. Driving through Astoria, we went east toward Longview, stopping at a quiet overlook spot on the river that was an eagle sanctuary (we didn’t see any eagles) and at a fish hatchery. We ate the last of our packed food as a picnic lunch at the hatchery and walked around the concrete fish ponds where, funnily, we saw a Belted Kingfisher and an American Dipper in the ponds. Then we drove further, finally crossing back over the river and exiting Oregon at Rainier to get to Longview, WA.

On our way back north on I-5, I decided to skip two parks, Seaquest and Lewis and Clark, in the interest of saving time so that we could end the driving around dinner time. But we did stop at Millersylvania State Park, south of Olympia. It’s a beautifully wooded park with a lake that merits more time than we gave it.

After struggling through some rush hour traffic on I-5 and Hwy. 18, we arrived back in Issaquah and had dinner at my favorite teriyaki place in town, Japan Ginger. Then Dave dropped me off at home and drove the additional 45 minutes to his house.

It was a very enjoyable trip in which we checked ten more state parks off my list and visited a beautiful corner of Washington that I had never previously explored.

Dave and I ate second breakfast again this morning: the first was in the cabin, some of the fruit and veggies we had brought along for picnic lunches. Then after we got underway and made it to the town of Raymond, we stopped at a restaurant there to get Dave the coffee he needed and supplement the picnic food with something more substantial. It was a pleasant sunny day in Raymond and the second meal hit the spot.

Our first state park was a little historical site in Raymond on the side of the road, Willie Keil’s gravesite. He had died in the 1800s just before his family took the Oregon Trail from Missouri to Washington. The family put his body into a barrel of whiskey and brought it on the trail with them, then buried him and the barrel in Washington.

From there, we did a short backtrack to skirt Willapa Bay, heading toward the Long Beach Peninsula. We drove through the town of Long Beach and northward on the peninsula.

I had plans to visit two parks on the northern end, but before we got there, we were surprised to see signs for a state park not on my list, Loomis Lake park. The sign looked new but the park facilities were sparse and older looking, so we guessed that perhaps the state had perhaps recently taken over a county park. We took the required sign photo and used the park’s restroom before moving on.

Next was Leadbetter Point park, sharing the northern end of the peninsula with a wildlife refuge. There were trails in this park to the shore of Willapa Bay as well as the ocean beach side of the peninsula, so we hike the trails to both, with the rebound trip being about 3.5 miles total. The tide was way out in Willapa Bay and very quiet. But we could hear the ocean surf on the other side, so we turned and walked toward the ocean side. Once on the ocean shore, we sat in the sand dunes and watched several flocks of Sanderlings and other small shorebirds fly by, heading south.

After a while, we returned to the truck then drove to the final park of the day, Pacific Pines State Park. This was another small, simple park with just picnic tables and a restroom. We ate some more of our picnic food for lunch.

And then we headed back to Long Beach to find a place to stay for the night. We settled on the Oceanview Inn at the Arch – Long Beach, where we have views of the dunes and the ocean. We walked three blocks to a recommended restaurant, Castaway’s, for dinner and on the way back Dave stopped by the hotel lobby for a couple free cookies for dessert.

Today my friend Dave and I started on a circuit around Washington’s lower left corner to visit state parks I’ve never been to before. Eleven parks are on the list and we explored three of them today.

Starting out just after sunrise from my house on a drizzly morning, we headed south along highway 18 and I-5 to Olympia. Thankfully, there weren’t any slowdowns or accidents along the way, so it was smooth sailing in Dave’s Toyota pickup through Tacoma, Olympia, and clear to Aberdeen, where we broke out into sunshine. There we stopped for second breakfast at Duffy’s, where there were few other people on a Monday morning around 9 a.m. but lots of variety on the menu. We enjoyed a leisurely meal while sitting at a pleasantly sunny table.

We then traveled on to our destination for the day: state parks around Westport. First up was Twin Harbor State Park, just a couple miles south of Westport. It appeared to be a great camping park with nearly 300 campsites that sits among the coastal pines and behind sand dunes next to the Pacific Ocean. We parked and took a short trail to the beach through pine tress and grassy dunes.

Next, we visited Grayland Beach State Park, just a few miles south of Twin Harbors. Also on the Pacific shore, this park had a really wide beach, which we walked across. And we spotted our our first Brown Pelicans of the day here.

Our third park was Westport Light State Park, which is really large. We chose the part next to the Westport jetty and found a spot on the bank behind the jetty to sit and watch the waves and the birds. The waves were huge, 9-11 feet according to a weather report, and there were lots of pelicans as well as several other species of birds plus a sea lion in the surf. We could see Ocean Shores across the mouth of Grays Harbor, but mostly we enjoyed watching the waves break on the jetty and the pelicans flying overhead. (I didn’t get any photos of pelicans.)

We ate our packed lunches here and then drove into Westport to explore the town. We found a little cabin to rent at the Westport Inn and relaxed there for a couple of hours, listening to the wind howl outside. Then we walked to a nearby fish place for dinner, where I had a fish taco that was much bigger than expected and clam chowder while Dave had fish and chips.