I Heard the Bird Sing - 8/6/15

Or: Keep truckin', like the doo-dah man...

Truckin' got my chips cashed in. 

Keep truckin', like the do-dah man.

Together, more or less in line,

 just keep truckin' on.

Grateful Dead. Let's get it started early, shall we....

Fun Facts: Truckin', by the Grateful Dead is a great song. It first appeared in their 1970 album American Beauty. It was recognized by the United States Library of Congress in 1997 as a national treasure. Whoa, Dude!!

Truckin', like the do-dah man. 

Once told me "You've got to play your hand".

Sometimes your cards ain't worth a dime,

If you don't lay'em down.

It was written by band members Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and lyricist Robert Hunter. Truckin' molds classic Grateful Dead Rhythms and instrumentation with lyrics that use the band's misfortunes on the road as a metaphor for getting through the constant changes in life. Its climactic refrain, What a long strange trip its been, has achieved widespread cultural use in the years since the song's release.

Truckin', up to Buffalo.

Been thinkin', you got to mellow slow

Takes time, you pick a place to go,

And just keep truckin' on.

The song was influenced by a dance from the twenties called Jiggeln. It was also influenced by underground comix artist R.Crumb's drawing Keep on Truckin' that appeared in Zap Comix #1 released in San Francisco in 1968.

Truckin', I'm a goin' home.

Whoa, whoa baby, back where I belong,

Back home, sit down and patch my bones,

And get back truckin' on.

Hey, now get back truckin' home.

Hahaha, that was fun. And it was brought to my mind and then to this blog by a proposed trip to a mystical, magical place called...the Rusty Truck. We'll talk about that later on in the blog.

But before that can happen we will go on a bird walk. It's the monthly Open Spaces walk and, like the others before it, it was fun. And, unfortunately, given the small number of birds we actually saw today, it was more like a bird listening walk.

Regardless, it was a walk and it was in yet another Lincoln City Open Space. I gotta say, real quick here, that these Open Spaces are a very good thing. I think, unfortunately, this might be the last new one for us to visit. Regardless, kudos to the folks of Lincoln City for setting aside these Open Spaces for all to enjoy.

Today's walk was at the Spring Lake Open Space, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was, indeed, a lake there for us to visit.

Right after we arrived, Carol spotted the first bird of the day!! It was a Band-Tailed Pigeon. And I was off to Picture City!! I'm still trying to honor my pledge to get some pictures of birds on these bird walks. Workin' it Boss!! Workin' it!!

And, since we were about ten minutes early, I had plenty of time to occupy myself with taking pictures of the area...and I did. These foxgloves are all over the city...they're like weeds, except easier to look at. 

Hahaha, don't blame me!! I was ready to go but we were waiting around. 

Hey! I'm just a boy, standing in front of a lake, asking it to let me take its picture.

I was, as I mentioned before, very surprised at the lake here; how big it is. And, there were plenty of photo opportunities. Oddly enough, as Ian noted, this was the very first time he had not seen a Great Blue Heron or Great Egret here at this lake.

Bummer!

I reconciled myself with some pictures of the water reflections. Hahaha, I likes me some reflection pictures.

I wonder at the forces that maneuvered these two logs to this exact position. Made for an interesting photo opportunity.

We are so fortunate to live where we do here in Lincoln City. It's just green all the time. Here's 14th Street NE, the street the Open Space is located on. And there's my loyal Mini, resting on the side of the road.

Plenty of early morning photo opportunities.

But I was also looking up, too. It's not the 'True' Blue Moon from a couple days ago, but it is still a moon and it is blue-tinted. This picture was taken around 0900.  It is a waning crescent (just barely) moon.

Fun Facts: The word crescent refers to the phases where the moon is less than half illuminated. The word gibbous refers to phases where the moon is more than half illuminated. Waxing essentially means growing or expanding in illumination, and waning means shrinking or decreasing in illumination.

Look! Oh, my gosh!! It's Alice Kramden up there!!

And from the moon we come back to Spring Lake. And reflections.

Hahaha, OK. Last one because we got things together and got started on today's fun.

We learned a little from Ian about this Open Space.

And then introductions were made. We met a couple visiting from Arizona and a Mother-Daughter Duo from Bellevue, Washington. Also new to the walk and from Lincoln City were Mike and Bron.

There were 11 of us for today's adventure. There's Carol, stylin' her new jacket.

And, all the necessary business concluded, we were off to adventure.

And we were finding it. It was just hard to see, is all.

Hahaha, it still staggers me when I look at this picture to realize this is in the middle of the city. This place is really an oasis of calm, peace and a natural beauty and it's right here. All you have to do to enjoy it is drive over to it.

And it is big. Here, they've built a small footbridge over a spring feeding the lake.

Here's Carol Anne, aka Cayak Carol, struttin' her stuff across the bridge. Proudly wearing her trusty Chucks.

Carol says "Keep on chuckin'..."

Oops!! I lied. I took another reflection picture. C'Mon, who could pass up a scene like this? Not me.

And there was some good up and down in this park. Brave little trooper that I am, I didn't whine about it...too much.

This is some thick growth for this park in the middle of this city. What must this area have looked like a couple hundred years ago?

Always hopeful. But it was tough going trying to find the birds.

I am not sure what they were looking up in the book, possibly one of the trees there. I was a distance away and so I am not sure. 

This was a great group today. Everyone meshed together well. This group of Birders was very out-going and friendly. I had a great time on the walk.

And I wasn't seeing any birds so I fell back to Plan B....shoot whatever caught my eye. I like the backlit leaves.

Plus the people.

And these Orange-In-The-Wind flowers. 

Plus these blackberries...

....ready for eating.

Hey, another leaf. There's something there.

Ummmm, help! Anybody know what these are?

OK, Carol just gave me the answer....these are seed pods on a Broom Plant.

Mystery solved!!

Thank you, Sherlock Schubert!!

Hahaha, I can get behind these kind of grants. Absolutely!!

And then, someone spotted this lady!! A Hairy Woodpecker.

Hahaha, score!! 

I was excited just to have finally seen her in the trees. Normally, I'm the guy looking at the air in front of me going, Huh!?!

And then I caught her again when she flew to another tree, a closer tree. Boo-yah!!

Since we started these walks with the ASLC, I've kind of glided into being the guy that takes pictures of the field trips for maybe being used in a newsletter or whatever. I'm sort of the unofficial pictorial recorder.

Captain's Log, Star Date: 20150806....

Hahaha, it's a job that I enjoy doing. I like having some small purpose other than just wandering about. And so, in this capacity, I suggested we get everyone together for a group picture before the walk was over.

They all willingly obliged and lined themselves up for the picture and then some wag among them (Caren), said for everyone to look at me with their binoculars.

Har, har, har!!

Actually, I fully expect to see this photo published in some form or another somewhere, sometime. 

Looking good, Bird-Watching People!!

This is what the birds get to see!!

And, after I gently chastised them, I got this picture. The Arizona couple had left early.

Winnah, winnah!! Chicken Dinnah!!

On our slow way back, we met up with this Mom and her two boys having a snack on the berries. The older one was quite outspoken and bold. He was questioning us and asking if we wanted to have some berries. I would imagine he is quite a handful for his teacher...or he will be.

Oh, OK. It was there and I shot it. 

#sueme

Besides being a pleasant picture of leaves reflected in a still pond, there's a salamander in there. Just a tad bit below center. It's tough to see...

....So I got a closer picture. 

Fun Facts: The name salamander comes from the Greek word for Fire Lizard. This was because the salamanders would come running out of the logs they'd been hiding in when those logs were thrown on a fire.

They're nocturnal creatures (so that makes me wonder why I saw him today). Some salamander species can be poisonous and some even, shudder, have teeth. Some salamanders have tongues up to 10 times as long as their bodies.

The largest salamander in the world is the Chinese Giant Salamander. It can grow to a length of 5 feet. 

And, drum roll, please, the Americas are home to more species of salamander than the entire rest of the world combined. 

Woo-Woo, we're Number One!!

Hahaha, OK, the walk was over and I was heading back to the Mini but I had to wait, Carol was chatting it up with Mike and Bron. 

So you can blame her for this one.

There, done with the reflections pictures. And I got one more picture of these foxgloves.

Before we left, Caren had mentioned a favorite bar/restaurant over in Taft and so I suggested we all meet there at 1500 (Cuz that's when Happy Hour starts!!) for a couple beers and something to eat. That was easily settled. 

Wanna get a beer? 

Yeah! Where?

With the bird walk concluded and the place we were meeting at later picked out, we headed on to our next errand. The radio station here in town.

Carol and I are trying to help, where we can, promote the ASLC. And so we thought we'd do this by feeding promos about upcoming walks to the local Am Radio Station, KBCH, 1400 on your AM Dial, Baby.

And so we drove on over to drop off a promo for an upcoming walk.

This is a totally cool radio station. Totally small town. They have segments where they let people mention things they're selling; a weekly segment with a Police Officer; another weekly show with LCO Chamber of Commerce; a Community Forum and so, so, so much more. Plus, they play some really great music mixing it up with an array of great artists. It's just fun listening to them.

It's my hometown radio station.

And the station is inside a building on the second floor over a mattress store and behind this nondescript door.

Here's the office. The DJ broadcasts from the small room behind the desk. They use a lot of feeds, but there's enough air time given to live shows to make this really interesting, and local.

And informal. Very, very informal.

While we were there, we talked with Keith Altomare, one of the on-air personalities. Hahaha, he's the only one we've met but that's because we usually stop by at around the same time when we visit.

Very personable guy. And very versatile, too. True story....We went to the Bijou Theater the other day to see Mr. Holmes (Four Stars out of Five). Imagine our surprise when we recognized Keith selling tickets there!! Turns out he and his wife own and operate the theater.

Small-Town America!! Love it!!

Oh and that's our ASLC announcement there in Keith's hand.

And here is my unsolicited plug for KBCH....

When you're in Lincoln City be sure to set your dial to KBCH, AM 1400 for great tunes plus timely and entertaining information.

That work being done, we decided we deserved a treat and so, since the BK was so doggone close, we walked on over. Oh, that's the City Hall/Library/Culinary Center there on the left across The 101 from the BK.

Mmmmmmm, ice cream and chicken nuggets!!

Good Eatin'!!

And, as a special treat on top of all the other ones, we got to see these guys outside the restaurant as we left.

OK, we made it back home from the walk and our treats. I worked on the pictures I had taken during this morning's walk to get them ready for this blog and watched a bit of the early Republican debates. Then we left to go on over to the bar/restaurant Caren had mentioned. 

That found us driving down The 101 towards Taft looking for this restaurant, The Rusty Truck.  It is, as Caren told us, on the right as you come into the Taft District and so we were looking for the Rusty Truck Restaurant.

As we entered Taft, Carol remarked that she thought Caren had meant the Roadhouse 101 restaurant, there on the right. I agreed with her but, hey, she said the Rusty Truck and so we continued looking for The Rusty Truck...and didn't see it.

Then, just as we passed the Roadhouse 101, I spotted, out of the corner of my eye, this truck sitting in the parking lot of the....Roadhouse 101.

We made a quick turn to get us back to the Roadhouse 101. Hahaha, Caren had the Rusty Truck all right...it's the micro-brewery located here, at the Roadhouse 101 Restaurant.

Hahaha, no harm, no foul. We made it and we were even a bit early so I was happy. And we were the first ones there.

This place looks exactly like what its name says. It's a roadhouse. I admit, I looked around for a Patrick Swayze look-alike but, no one fit that bill. The place looked comfortable, though.

I apologize for the blurred pics but it was a dimly lit bar so cut me some slack, 'Kay!?!

Tom and Caren showed up next and, naturally, given my petty, mean and spiteful nature and knowing I am never one to pass up an opportunity to notch a couple points on someone else, I ragged her about The Rusty Truck vs The Roadhouse 101 snafu.

Ahhhh, keen fun!! For me, at least.

And then Mike and Bron showed up. They moved to LCO way back in January. They're retired, he was an IT Guru with Ross Perot's Empire. Their kids own a rental house over in Roads End and decided they'd rather have Mom and Dad in the house rather than fussing with all the headaches of running a rental and so....here they are....all the way from Colorado!!

Oh, and I am pretty doggone sure they will become the newest members of the ASLC. And don't you think Mike has that Vice-Presidential air about him!?! Y'Know, as I think about it, so does Bron. Hey, it could happen.

We had some OK food, some good beer and a whole heckuva lot of laughs for nearly two hours. It was fun breezing with these guys. I haven't laughed so hard and so loud in a long, long time. A very long time.

And, since this is Oregon, I wasn't surprised by the most recent addition to their boutique beers.

Yeah, that's right....Reefer Hempeweizen.

Oregon. Go figure.

After we got back, Carol took a walk to the store rather than watch the Republican Debates and sent me this picture. Nice positioning of the sun for her picture. Or is it the beginning of the Rapture?

Hmmmmmm....

CB

So we had a great day. We found a new place to visit in LCO. We met some great people and made two new friends. We got to go on a pleasant walk and see and learn new things. We did something positive and then, to top the day off, we had a great time laughing and talking and smiling with friends....a lot. Oh, and we finally found the Rusty Truck!!

Day couldn't get much better than this. Nope.

A great day.

Life is good.

     Hooah!!