Leon Turnbull Photography

It rained during the night, but we woke up to no rain, just overcast skies. That would not last for long, but for long enough.

We made the very very very very long drive up to the Kentucky Falls trailhead in Siuslaw National Forest. You have to really want to go there. Of course, I did really want to go there, knowing that there were three spectacular waterfalls along this trail. The trail descends gently to the first waterfall in only a half mile of hiking, Upper Kentucky Falls. This is where I said good-bye to my family. After this first falls, they headed back up the trail to the car to have lunch, while I continued down the trail. The last two waterfalls involve a 4 mile round trip hike, and the trail is much steeper than the first part (though not really too bad). Nekoda would not have been able to do the entire hike and Jadon wanted to eat lunch, so I went on alone (well not quite alone, I took my dog Kaya with me). It was quite a pleasant hike down to the twin waterfalls, Kentucky Falls and North Fork Falls. These two waterfalls are incredible, dropping nearly side by side, each about 100 ft. high. The mist from the falls again was a big factor, especially for Kentucky Falls. As I was shooting Kentucky Falls, we scared up a lone female hiker. Actually, she scared us as she came up from the trail below us and Kaya started barking at her (she was just startled is all, she is a very gentle dog). That caused her to slip on the wet platform and almost bite the dust. My wife said that when she got back to her car, she didn’t have much concern about stripping off all her clothes to change in full view of everyone at the trailhead (which … was just my wife and kids). Anyway … I dried off my lens and then made my way down to the river to get a better view of North Fork Falls. This is the waterfall shown above. This falls is definitely one of my favorites from the trip. It is a real beauty. And I was far enough away that there was not too much mist. Sweet. My dog Kaya, who is almost 10 years old now, took a short nap beside the river while I made my photos. These longer hikes may be getting a bit much for her, but she loves them so much. Anyway, we hiked back up to the car in good time. The rain started up in force as soon as I got back, and it essentially did not let up for the rest of the day, night, and next day. And it definitely got a lot worse, but stay tuned for that story.

We then drove down to Umpqua River Lighthouse and took a tour of that light. My wife is a lighthouse lover, and this one is quite an interesting one. Definitely worth taking the tour. Afterwards, Nekoda noticed the enticing sand dunes from the overlook at the lighthouse, and insisted on going down there to play in the sand (and the rain). Daddy obliged and took her down there, and she had a lot of fun building a little sand castle. Then I told her we should run down the dunes as fast as we could. She had a total blast doing that.