Oregon and Northern California Hybrid Road Trip-Day 7

Sea Stacks at Cannon Beach, Oregon

My images can be found here.  Take a look.  Thank you.

Phase II of the trip continued; Exploration of the Oregon Coast via a good old automobile-Day 3; Newport, OR to the Columbia River and Return

We arose early this morning, had a "breakfast" at the hotel and then headed north.  Our goal was to drive north to the Columbia River and Fort Stevens State Park and Fort Clatsop, then slowly head back south, visiting various scenic vistas, the small towns through which we passed and discovering the northern part of the Oregon coast.

The Wreck of the Peter Iredale

That being said, we found ourselves stopping quite a few times while driving north to view the scenery and make images.  I'm glad we did as the morning was heavily overcast, but the afternoon was sunny!  The difference being the light, the mood of the place and how my images looked differently across time.  It is all about the light.

Since it is rather late, and I am pretty tired after traveling and being on the move for 7 straight days, I'm going to make this post relatively short.  I'll add more later, so check back.

We stopped and visited the following northern Oregon coast places:

Fort Clatsop (where Lewis and Clark weathered the winter of 1805-06 before heading back east)
Fort Stevens State Park (the wreck of the Peter Iredale, a 4 masted barque, which lies on the beach)
Ecola State Park (to view Tillamook Head Light, which is a mile out to sea on a large rock!)
Cannon Beach (very famous; the images are quite frequently seen of the Haystack, giant rock)
Tolovana Beach
Yaquina Bay
Hug Point and
Boiler Bay (nothing remarkable, just a pleasant area to look at the ocean meet the shore)

We also ate a wonderful lunch in Seaside.  While there, we "made the turn" as we were told we must do.  "The Turn" is merely where the main street dead ends at the beach and there is a small circle in which automobiles go around and come back out the opposite direction.  Not sure why that is significant, but we did it.

Ft. Clatsop is where Lewis and Clark wintered over during their great exploration from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean.  The stayed there from December 1805 through March 1806.  Tiny, tiny, tiny place for quite a few explorers.  Very interesting and I need to go back as I didn't have much time there.

At Fort Stevens State Park, on the beach, just yards from the surf, is the remains of the shipwrecked barque, The Peter Iredale, which sunk on October 25, 1906--107 years ago yesterday.  Much more of the wreck was there in the recent past, but still quite a bit is still mired in the sand.  See image included in this blog post.

Cannon Beach is famous for the sea stacks, especially the Haystack, a giant sea stack.  Sea stacks are erosion resistant rocks isolated from the land usually with steep vertical sides.  They are all up and down the Oregon coast.  Very cool!

We finally returned to Newport, our temporary home base, at about 6:30 pm. It was a long, full day.  We had a great Italian meal at a tiny little family restaurant off the beaten path, called The Green Gables Restaurant, and we were very pleasantly surprised at the quality of the home made meals that were prepared for us.  Everything is very authentic Italian and made on the premises.  Highly recommended.

More later.  Tired.  Need rest!  Until tomorrow, that is, then we are on our way south to explore more of the Oregon coast.

UPDATE:  Yesterday was a great day.  The drive all the up the Oregon coast to the Columbia River was full of potential images.  We stopped often to just pull over at the "vista" points the state provides along the way.  Whenever I saw something that provoked an emotion in me, I made some images.

Since we didn't have much time, we only were going o stop at Ft. Clatsop.  However, the lady working the visitor's center, upon hearing my plight of little time, told me to go back and check it out and don't worry about the fee. Thank you very much, mam.  I suspect she knew that a quick look would only peak my interest and goad me into coming back and really going through the site thoroughly.

We didn't hit much traffic on Route 101.  I suspect that this time of year is way out of tourist season.  We pretty had the road much to ourselves and weren't slowed for any significant time by slow campers or trucks.  It was a very nice drive.  I can recommend it.

Thanks for looking.  Enjoy!

Dennis Mook


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