Cape Foulweather, Week 1

News from Winter Camp, Cape Foulweather

December 9, 2015

Cheryl's News

Rich and I arrived safely at our new hosting site. For the month of December, we are volunteering for OPRD at the Cape Foulweather Gift Shop on the Oregon Coast. Our job includes retail sales, restocking and talking to folks about any whale sightings. 

 

Cheryl and Rich at work

Not that there are many whale sighting. Grey whales as they migrate south (December through January) are on a focused mission. They do not eat as they migrate, nor hang out and check out any sights along the way. We saw a few spouts on the one clear day we have had, and that's all.

View

The view here, though, is spectacular. Windows make up two sides of the gift shop, and on clear days, it's absolutely stunning.

Rich hard at "work"

Chinese Water Torture

Our first week at Cape Foulweather included three days of torrential rain. The sound of the rain - combined with the usual sound of pine cones dropping on the trailer roof - was deafening. We could not even hear each other talk. 

 

Flooding

At least our campsite stayed “dry”, if you can actually use that kind of word for this weather. Anyway, the campsites along the creek all flooded. 

 

Blown Over Porta-Potty

We also had high wind gusts which blew over the two porta-potties in the parking lot.

Week one comes to an end, and Rich and I look forward to week two. Will the rain continue? Will our geriatric minds function well enough to run the cash register? Will the till balance at the end of the day? Will Mimi (our cat) get fed up with all the rain and head for drier climes? Stay tuned.

Thunderbolts and Lightning, very very frightening

Weather Update for 12 July – 18 July 2015

High Temp: 90.0

Low Temp: 54.1

Humidity: 31% - 94%

Rainfall: Zip

Cheryl's News from Camp Webegone

Thorsday, July 9, 2015

Kaboom! And lightning crashed down into the Natural Bridge Campground.

Fortunately for us, it was raining at the time (over and inch in less than an hour), so it wasn't the fire hazard it would otherwise have been. Still scary though!

Lightning-struck tree

That day, we had heavy rainfall. There was even a brief period of hail the size of blueberries (during which when I opened the door, our cat, Mimi, bolted for her safe place in the woods). End of the day, big puddles, 2” deep in our campsite. And site 6 was a lake with about 6” of water throughout. Six inches of water and a black lab sitting and playing in it. That was how our day ended.

All sites were impacted by the storm, but all the campers stayed. Real campers, all.

The next day Rich and went on an explore to locate where the lightening struck. As it turned out, one bolt had hit four trees. That made us curious, so we asked around. The park ranger said the lightening probably hit the lead tree, then ricocheted to two other trees, and finally ricocheted off one of those trees to hit the fourth tree, the smallest tree of the four hit.

We also asked around about why the bark was stripped off the tree. There was a physicist staying at the campground at the time, and he said that when lightening strikes a tree, the moisture under the bark instantly vaporizes, which creates a force that blows the bark off of the tree. 

Now, isn't that something.

Cheryl