Early January my wife and I had the good fortune to spend two nights out of town which I had won in a drawing in a no strings attached door prize at work. All I had to do was put gum on the back of my business card and magically it was the one drawn at the holiday lunch.

We headed out on a Thursday with little idea what to expect. The destination was Ocean Shores, Washington, a sleepy little town on a peninsula halfway up the Washington coastline. Three hours away, the chosen route took us through beautiful back roads, alongside train tracks and Gray's Harbor. We passed through small towns and the larger ones on the harbor, Hoquiam and Aberdeen.

A juvenile Great Blue Heron accomodated our yearning for memorable photos by deftly seeking a meal in a rain ditch as we pulled up next to it.

All around the area for two days, everywhere we looked, such as hiking in the rain forest in the middle of the city we came across gorgeous specimens of flora and fauna.

The town of Ocean Shores itself was carved out of the cattle ranches on the peninsula in the 1960's. An intricate system of lagoons and canals

stretches out for it's eight or so miles to the very end at a place known as Damon Point. Damon Point's actual configuration changes with tides and the seasons.We went to the Tourist Information Center where a wonderful woman told us what we could find to do. She suggested the Interpretive Center but we would have to wait until it was open Saturday morning to go there. I correctly guessed from her emphasis on the "smart" things to do that prior to being the information center's main greeter that she had been a career grade school teacher . She was delighted that I could tell.

She correctly guessed by my joking questions and intense interest that I had been the class clown who got tired of good grades quickly....

The tide cards you can find at a coastal town are never quite right. I quickly calculated  the next rising tide and how long we could be on the tip of the peninsula before risking it turning into an island for six hours. I teased our teacher friend and told her I hoped I wouldn't have to call her for help.

She looked at my wife and said " He's sharp but how do you manage?"

My wife told her " I work with the most troubled children in a grade school."

The ex-teacher wagged her crooked pointed finger at me and admonished,  "You got lucky."

"Shrewd is more like it, teach" I smiled, keeping the thought to myself.

We ventured out immediately on the drive to the end of the peninsula and found a place of extreme beauty. We saw photographers with lenses the size of battleship guns rushing by to get to the very end of the point. We were tired and quite satisfied with our location so we took it all in from a closer vantage.

It wasn't until Saturday as we toured the museum-like interpretive center that we were told that if we had only continued our walk for an hour to the end in the distance past this big stump, we could have seen the gathering of the extremely rare Snowy Owls. We missed them. Those had been NBC photographers and Audobon Society members who had passed us.

Our only consolation was knowing that we had been close to them, had seen a gorgeous sunset on a weekday night

and now had to hit the road to go back to work. We just could not have added another three or four hours to that day.

This past week on NBC, video tape of that day was broadcast. They are truly remarkable creatures. I wonder if there will be a next time.

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/46228719/#46228719