Finally, finally, after weeks and weeks of rain, we finally had some dry and even sunny days this week!
James immediately went golfing of course and I had coffee outside for the first time this winter!

It felt so good, a little bit of sun on my face!

                                               

Since James was up to speed with his appraisals, and we didn't have any new ones coming in just yet, we took advantage of this beautiful weather and drove to the coast for the day.
Lincoln city is only 45 minutes away from us now, a nice scenic drive on Hwy 18 through the Van Duzer Forest State Scenic Corridor, part of the coastal mountain range, over the 800' pass and down to the beach in Lincoln city.

We'd decided to do a little 3 mile hike, just north of town, the Knoll loop, which promised beautiful scenery through coastal forest, fields and a final view of the ocean:

            

Walking counter-clock wise the first part of the hike goes through a woodland of mixed forest (hemlock, spruce, and alder):



As usual for Oregon, the trees are covered in moss and the ground with ferns ..

The trail is fairly level in the beginning but starts to climb steeply fairly soon and we had to stop a couple of times to catch our breath.
About halfway the loop we came across a sign for 'Gods Thumb' which I'd read about and supposedly takes you to an amazing viewing point.
It adds another mile or so to the trail but we decided to go for it.

We passed an open meadow where a doe and her (older) fawn were grazing against the tree-line:



                                                    

And this Kestrel, resting on the very tippety-top of a spruce-tree. As you can see there were a lot of tiny flies swarming in the air ..

                    

And finally we reached 'God's Thumb':




The Thumb is part of a basalt dike formed during the late Eocene. The small cove below was created when the dike was breached and wave action began to rapidly gouge out the much softer siltstones and claystones of the Nestucca Formation, which the dike had been protecting.

As you can see the trail from here drops steeply down the edge of a cove. We chose not to climb the Thump itself, it looked way to steep for me, but if you look closely there are a few daredevils at the end/top ..

Time for a coffee-break, while admiring this amazing view from the safety of the little meadow in front .. and yes, I'm sitting quite close to the edge there ..

                               

                                      

To the north you look across the mouth of the Salmon River to Cascade Head and to the south to Lincoln City.

 

After a while we made our way back to the main loop and continued down the other side of the hill from there (thank goodness!) towards the grassy crest of a lower ridge, known in these parts as The Knoll, a Lincoln City Open Space.



From here you have an expansive view to the south that includes Devils Lake and the spread of Lincoln City.
Apparently local elk bed down in this meadow at night.

                  
                                                                             Devils Lake

From here it was supposed to be a easy and fairly quick way back to our car if it wasn't for the fact that we got lost and ended up walking another mile or 2 through a forested neighborhood before finally making it back.
Phew! We were bot feeling our hips and knees and feet! I guess we're not spring-chicken or in the best shape anymore!

We felt we deserved some comfort food after this and went for a greasy meal at this 60s diner:

                                             

 

A nice 'Elvis' hamburger and a blackberry milkshake put us right again.
No calories here (even though we shared)! 😂

A drive to the ocean where we looked out over the beach for a while was all we could manage after this ..

It was a beautiful day and we were glad we went. It had been a while since our last outing and it was good to be out in the fresh air and the warm sunshine for a while.

Next week's forecast ... rain!