Today starts our drive down the Oregon Coast. It’s a little less than 5 hours to our next overnight in Reedsport, and we’ve got tons of stops we want to make on the way.
The day dawns with a thick fog enveloping Astoria. Bummer – our first stop – the Astoria Column sitting 600 feet above sea level and providing allegedly incredible views over Young’s Bay, the Coast Range and the Columbia River – is going to be totally socked in. Plus – it doesn’t open until 9 and we’re ready to go by 8:30. Sigh. Should have thought of this yesterday when it was crystal clear out, and we were hanging around the hotel just relaxing and watching the bay. Oh well. Next time.
So, off we go southward down the coast. Our first stop is the little town of Seaside, less than 1/2 an hour away. Seaside is a quintessential Oregon Coast beach resort, actually it’s first beach resort town. A long main street lined with restaurants, shops and an arcade with bumper cars dead ends at the oceanfront promenade. It’s early enough that we are able to park right by the beach and walk around a bit in the fresh air.
I tried to take pictures of the main street, but the lighting was so bad, it wasn’t worth it (except for the shadow of a building in the first picture below). What we did manage to get pictures of, though, is the massively wide Seaside beach, where you can see the fog just receding and the vast emptiness of the sand in either direction.
Our next stop is Ecola State Park where there are good views of Cannon Beach and the incredible rock formations in the water. The drive up into the park is worth the detour. Huge Pine trees line the narrow winding entrance road, with no one around, it seems like we are deep in some uncharted forest land, maybe lost and never to return. Yeah, well, then we come into the parking lot at the view point – ok, so it’s not uncharted wilderness, but it sure is gorgeous!
There are trails that wind their way all through the park, leading to different beaches and lighthouse viewpoints. Some of the trails are quite long, and the area is damp and muddy (it’s Oregon – what do you expect?), so we nix the hiking and just walk to the different viewpoints for the scenery. It’s majestic – that is a word we’ll say over and over again through out the next couple of days.
At the Cannon Beach overlook, we take our fill of pictures and meet a sweet couple from Fort Collins, CO, who we chat with for a while. They are staying in Astoria, and doing the drive in the opposite direction that we are – so we won’t cross paths with them again – but it is nice to exchange information, ideas and beer experiences (they too are on a craft beer crawl, so to speak).
We say goodbye to our new friends and wander around the park a bit more, but eschew the lighthouse trail because of the mud. Not ruining our only pair of sneakers for a photo. We do take a few more coastal photos…
…and we head down into Cannon Beach proper. Again, another cute little Coastal Oregon beach town – couple of streets with shops and restaurants, a few hotels and the wide, empty beach stretching for miles with only a couple people out there, mostly flying kites.
We are now into one of the long coastal stretches of our drive – we’re aiming for the Tillamook Cheese Factory and the Tillamook Country Smoker outlet where we are going to stock up on supplies (for the rest of the trip and to take home). The scenery continues to amaze, and we stop a few times for scenic photos and to stretch our legs.
We arrive at the Country Smoker and proceed to buy entirely way too much beef jerky, pork jerky and beef sticks. What were we thinking? The bags weigh 10 pounds – oh – our poor suitcases –and I’ve over-packed already. Getting this stuff home will be a challenge, for sure. Next up is the Tillamook Cheese Factory which is absolutely, positively jam packed with people. We are parked out in the ancillary lot and you have to elbow your way through the ice cream line. Seriously – what ice cream has to do with cheese…well…I’m clueless, but it’s a HUGE seller, that I can tell you.
We manage to sneak our way through the people to the inside of the store where we end up standing in another line for samples, behind some child unsuccessfully trying to dig out the little cheese cubes with his toothpick, and holding up everyone. Argh. Finally through the sample line, we score some cheap smoked pepper white cheese slice “end cuts”, Ed picks up his cheese curds, a big old bar of their sharp cheddar that we love, and we are outta there. Yikes. Too many people!
Back on the road, we head to Three Capes Scenic Drive where there are 3 parks we can visit, and we figure we’ll find a place for our picnic leftover and cheese lunch somewhere there.
No comments:
Post a Comment