Bigfoot sighting.

The sign read "Please wait to be seated". Peering ahead into the interior gloom, I thought to myself, "this has got to be the ugliest maitre d' I have ever seen!" Taking a second look revealed that this wasn't an employee. It was apparently the resident mascot. I was especially grateful that it wasn't the cook. The shedding factor would be enormous! Ugh.

This photo was remarkably hard to pull off with the G11. The interior of the restaurant was very dimly lit. Natural wood making up just about everything inside soaked up the light even more. I have a dedicated flash unit for the Canon. It took several attempts, each time adjusting the flash output just a bit more, to get a decent exposure. Fortunately, it was a quiet night. The place is pretty small and I had to stand near the main entry and walkway the wait staff uses. A tired looking but cheerful blond woman was doing hostess duties. For some reason she thought my boldness in trying to take photos was endearing. What is it with me and older women?

Katie and I were at Bigfoot's Steakhouse. I'd eaten there in July of 2008 when Elivra got her first trip to Astoria. I'd ended up staying at a Motel 6 in Seaside. Summer on the coast means really expensive hotel rooms. Motel 6 left the light on for me at a reasonable price so I stayed there. Bigfoot's Restaurant is right next door to Motel 6. I chose it for supper because of the proximity.

Katie's dad professes to believe in the existence of Bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest. The whole clan is borderline hillbilly. I don't mean that in the negative Deliverance sort of way. Like me, they enjoy hunting, fishing, camping, working on trucks, and that sort of thing. For that reason I knew Katie would get a kick out of eating here. As you can see from the photo above, the place is done up like an old log cabin. I took some outside shots with the Nikon earlier in the day.

Floors are natural hardwood. All the tables, booths, and chairs are made of wood. Imitation oil lamps kinda sorta illuminate the place. Burlap bags serve as window curtains. Interestingly, the effect is authentic. Nothing looks fake. I don't know how long the restaurant has been operating but the furnishings look like they have been around for a lot of years and show the wear. My kind of place, actually. I'm a lot more comfortable in these surroundings than in a white linen fancy establishment. I can never figure out which fork to use first. Here you only get one. Simple choice. Fork or fingers? In this case, I used both. Like I say, my kind of place.

The G11 has a low light setting that works extremely well. This photo was taken with no flash. The glossy surface would have blinded us with the flash reflection. Our table was not well lit. This isn't the actual menu, it's more of a bar and appetizer list. The menu is a foldout newspaper thing. Menu items reside alongside local history and news stories about Bigfoot that are, shall we say, somewhat embellished. The food is very good if you like things rustic. I opted for a Bigfoot Cheeseburger. Sorry there's no photo. I need to reverse my plan. I write the story later and use whatever photos I have. A better plan might be to have an idea of a story first then take photos to support it. Oh well. The burger was good either way. Bigfoot tastes a lot like ground beef.

This photo's admittedly a little busy. On the other hand, it sets the stage of the surroundings a bit. So I left it alone.

I made concessions on this one. If you look at the photo above you can see the blue light pole between Katie and the wood carving. There was no way to take the photo of this particular carving without having the blue pole sticking out the top of its head. This was my first venture into cloning in Photoshop. It's cool to change reality by removing the light pole and adding more sky.

It's neat to see local legends getting their due. Makes me feel like there's hope for me!

One more post. I'm hoping to show a more artistic side with the next group of photos.

Miles and smiles,

Dan