Oregon Coast Scenes...plus a few Critters

I came up the Oregon coast from Yachats a couple weeks ago.  Here is a pic of the Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport in great light.  This is a Conde McCullough classic, built during the 1930s with fine Art Deco style.

The Peter Iredale has been an attraction in Fort Stevens SP since 1906, when it ran aground on the beach.  The story of the wreck is in the next pic.

This plaque at the wreck site explains the incident.  Blow up the pic to read.  This was my first visit to the ship in, oh, at least thirty years, but I came here as a kid several times.

A tranquil lake in Fort Stevens SP.  Lots of mozzies, though.

Some of the old coastal defense installations at Fort Stevens.  Sitting at the mouth of the Columbia River near Astoria, this was an important military site on par with the Golden Gate.  These structures were built in 1898 and abandoned in 1947.  You can tour several rooms in various buildings in the park...cozy but drab.  I would imagine they were chilly and dank much of the time.  

A large tanker entering the Columbia River near Fort Stevens.

Octopus tree at Cape Meares, near Tillamook.

Sea cave at Hug Point, near Cannon Beach.  There were actually a lot of people around.  The Oregon Coast is wonderful, especially in summer, and the folks from Portland flock here in great numbers.

A barnacle colony at Hug Point.

The classic view from Neahkanie Mountain, looking south.  Manzanita is on the upper left.  I take the same picture almost every year, but the view never gets old.

And just a few critter pics...I toured the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle last week with some friends from Redmond WA.  Though I lived in Seattle in my college years and have been back many times since, I had never been to the zoo!  It's quite good.  Here the Humboldt penguins are enjoying the sunshine.

A jaguar sloatin'. 

And here's the cock of the rock...literally!