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COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD 26 | THE COLONY NEWS | AUGUST 2021 | SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS By Kathy Sullivan I just returned home from my two-month camping/photography trip around the West Coast states. After I left the Sierras, I spent some time in Bend, Oregon, which is known for its amazing scenery of lakes, snowcapped mountains, waterfalls, streams, and in John Day, a city situated in the midst of meadows studded with cattle and framed with pine-covered rolling hills and near the John Day Fossil Bed National Park. You probably can tell I liked these areas of Oregon! From there I went to join a group of photographers and "shoot" the Palouse, the second-largest wheat growing area in the world (photo). What fun I had spending time in this enchanted land with a bunch of passionate photographers. I then cut across Washington on Hwy 20 – the northernmost east- west road in Washington. I have visited the Alps, the Andes and most of the big mountain ranges in the U.S., and the Cascades are as awe- inspiring as any of them. I skipped the Olympic National Forest this trip, but I drove down the rest of the coast of Washington. On my last night, I camped at Cape Disappointment, where Lewis and Clark first saw the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River. They spent a winter here and struggled with the cold, bug bites and low provisions, thus the name Cape Disappointment. The water on the other side of the lighthouse is the Columbia River, and the mountains in the distance are in Oregon. I gave myself 10 days to drive the 350 miles of the Oregon Coast. In my old age, I don't get up as early and I don't put the hours in as much as I once did. I averaged an hour for every 10 miles. If you stop and look at all the overlooks and small drives off Hwy 101, you can't put on many miles in a day. I see all the travelers just zooming by and wonder if they realize, or even care, what they are missing. For instance, there was a sign for a nature area. I thought that sounded interesting, so I took a quick left and was gifted with a small botanical garden, a natural garden of carnivorous plants. The ones in the photograph are young, as older ones turn dark red and brown. The bugs walk up the "mustache" and enter the big dome area. They can't find their way out and eventually end up sliding down the throat and being digested by the plant. Nasty plants – but they do grow in bogs where there is a large selection of bugs. My daughter-in-law and grandsons joined me in Oregon. We had a great time camping, playing on sand dunes and walking the beaches. They did complain to their mom that Nana stopped too much. Probably my favorite beach from the trip was Bandon Beach. Like the Cascade Mountains, Bandon Beach rivals any beach in the world. Give me a month to relax, and I am off again! The Pacific Northwest