A Changeable Day

On Saturday I braved the holiday weekend crowds and went exploring on the northern Oregon coast.  The morning was sunny and warm, even at Cannon Beach, where the iconic Haystack Rock loomed.

Ecola State Park has been a favorite spot of mine for nigh on forty years!  Here is Indian Beach on a fine morning, with picnickers, sunbathers, and surfies thronging to the sand.

I went hiking in the woods...seriously steep trail through a verdant coastal forest of Sitka spruce and hemlock, the light ever changing and diverse.

But...about midday, the fog began rolling in!  This did not appear to deter the beachgoers, and it made for nice photographs.

In many spots the fog was thin, allowing varying amounts of sunshine.  The light was sublime.

A very slight veneer of fog softens the light around this gnarly tree.  The pic appears pristine but was shot at the main viewpoint in Ecola, with hundreds of tourons scurrying about.

From highway 101 on the slope of Neahkanie Mountain, the fog envelops Manzanita.  Car thermometer read 71 degrees at the spot where I took the picture, but the temperature at the beach at Manzanita was almost ten degrees cooler. 

About 24 hours earlier, this was the picture from the same spot...a bit wider angle shot.  'Twas a gorgeous Friday.  24 hours before that, there was thin fog and the wind was blowing 30-40 MPH so I didn't get out of my car and just drove on by.