Ho-Hum

Another whale has washed up near Florence. This drama has been playing out since Friday, when the creature was first seen struggling north of the Siuslaw River mouth. It went back out to sea, then was spotted washed ashore yesterday. The picture, to me at least, doesn't really give a good sense of scale; it's 55 feet (about 18 meters) long, and weighs an estimated 50 tons. Apparently, if all goes well, the plan is to bury it today. I was sort of hoping a repeat of the strategy from 1970 where they tried to convert a dead whale to seagull food, but I guess they learned how well that works...

For regular readers, you may remember my post on Sea Lion Caves from near the end of December. This picture is looking north toward that headland, and the building up on the rock may be the shop leading into it. I don't think it actually is, but from this picture I can't convince myself either way.

I say "ho-hum" because growing up in Ohio, this happened all the time. When the Army Corps of Engineers re-routed the Hocking River through Athens, it confused the whale migrations badly. That, and the growing racket from the submarine races. Yeah, I sometimes miss my old stomping grounds on the banks of the mighty Hocking.