Cannon Beach Trip - July 26 - Aug. 3

After some thought I realized it made more sense for me to capsulize the trip rather than to do a day-by-day travelogue.  I've no idea how long this entry will be -- or the length of it -- but here we go ....
We left on Tues. to drive to Birmingham in time to pick up our granddaughters, the older who was at her mother's school, and the younger at a day camp.  We enjoyed the afternoon and evening with them, spent a short night, rising in time to leave our daughter's at 5 AM, and drove to BHM for a 6:50 flight to Portland via Dallas.  Security was relatively painless, and we left on time.  We had a long enough layover in Dallas to eat breakfast, and we met our friends Don & Denise from Dallas, who joined us on our journey.  Again our flight to PDX was on time -- and beautiful, as always when clear, as we sailed between Mt. Hood to the south and Mts. Baker and St. Helens to the north in the final glide through the Columbia River Gorge.  We landed to pleasant temps (though warm by Portland standards -- probably 80), got our rental car, and headed to the OR coast, stopping for lunch in the suburbs of Portland and at the small but attractive Apolloni Winery in Forest Grove.  We tasted their wines, bought a couple of bottles each, and unwisely let ourselves get talked into a "scenic route" through the mountains to Cannon Beach that added a couple of hours to our trip.

We approached CB from the south on Hwy. 101, a coastal highway, which offers one occasional breathtaking scenes overlooking the rocky, mountainous coastline and the mighty Pacific.  Once we checked into our rooms, which had balcony views overlooking the ocean and gave us spectacular views of Ecola State Park and the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse to the north, we ambled the block to town to Bill's Tavern for beer and ended up being talked into fish and chips there.  It was perfect, and we all crashed early since we had had long days and lost 2 hours traveling to the PDT zone.

Our days then fell into a relaxing and pleasant routine.  I would wake each morning, make a cup of coffee, get dressed, walk the beach toward the iconic Haystack Rock, pick up any sand dollars and shells that I thought needed a ride back to MS, returned to find my blushing bride awake, get cleaned up and dressed, then walk to Insomnia, a local coffee shop, to have coffee and a pastry (the most interesting and unhealthy being a huge biscuit made with bleu cheese and bacon), and going from there.  Each day we spent some time wandering the beach and into the shops and art galleries in CB. We found wonderful places for salads, sandwiches, or fish & chips for lunch, and we ate at some remarkable little restaurants at night (always sharing great PNW wine and one or more decadently interesting desserts).  I had halibut, seafood stew, salmon, etc., so that part of the diet was quite healthy.

As I said, our hotel was right on the beach ... and OR beaches are wide (tidal swings of ~330 yds. between high and low), rocky, hard near the waterline, and have packed sand which make it easy to walk on.  And the water and air are quite cool ... the sea is like a mountain stream, and the air with the sea breeze typically required long sleeves, caps, and sometimes something on the ears, even though we were there during their warmest time of the year.  It was foggy, overcast, and about 55 every morning; eventually the clouds and fog would burn off, and it would warm up into the mid to high 60's (although the one really bright, sunny day we had it got all the way up to maybe 73).

I'll mention a few highlights of what we saw:

• About a mile to our south was Haystack Rock, which is a 235' rock in a shape one can guess from the name.  It's about 100 yds. our in the sea at the typical high tide, but at low tide the eastern edge of the rock juts out of the water, leaving a number of tidal pools filled with sea anemones and usually starfish (or sea stars, as I was informed they're more appropriately called); however, this year the starfish are suffering from something called wasting syndrome, and there were very few to be seen. A number of species of birds, including the fascinating tufted puffin, nest on the rock and are constantly flying off and back.  Each summer a group of volunteers armed with displays and equipment, including a telescope and binoculars, sets up shop on the beach near the Rock and helps visitors understand what they're seeing.  It's an impressive endeavor at a stunning site.
• One day Don, Denise, and I drove the 30 miles north to the old town of Astoria OR, which is located on the Pacific and on the Columbia River.  It's where Lewis & Clark spent the winter of 1805-6, when they arrived at the coast, at what they named Ft. Clatsop in honor of their Indian hosts.  In 1811 two parties sent by fur magnate John Jacob Astor, one seagoing and one overland, arrived and established a trading post, which they named Astoria.  It has blue collar roots -- first the fur traders, then the canning industry for all of the salmon that were/are caught on the river.  The Columbia River Bar, where the enormous river runs into the Pacific, is a treacherous area known as the "Graveyard of the Pacific" because of all of the ships that have been lost while trying to enter the river.  Astoria has a Columbia River Maritime Museum, which we found fascinating,  and on a mountain overlooking the city and surrounding area the Astoria Column, which a railroad magnate had commissioned in 1926 with artwork celebrating the history of the region.  It's impressive, and the view from atop the 600' mountain it's on is terrific.  They also have some great restaurants on piers jutting out into the Columbia, and we had lunch at one of these, Baked Alaska.  We found Astoria to be quite a nice place to spend a half day.
• And about a mile north of our hotel, as I mentioned above, is Ecola State Park, which has a long history.  The name comes from the Indian word for whale ... apparently reports that one had washed up on the beach reached Lewis & Clark, and some of their group went down to look at it.  The south end is called Chapman Point and has a collection of rocks called Bird Rocks because thousands of birds nest on them.  Just over a mile out from Ecola is Tillamook Rock, on which some genius decided they should build a lighthouse in 1880.  The weather was so constantly awful and the tasks of keeping it supplied so onerous that they decommissioned it 60 yrs. ago.  The lighthouse is known as "Terrible Tilly" because it had such a (predictably) wretched history. 

All of our crew had been to Cannon Beach before, and it was all that we expected and more.  It was just about a perfect trip to me.  We drove back this past Mon. to Portland and spent the night at the Hotel Lucia, a charming boutique hotel in downtown.  We checked in, ate lunch, roamed down to Pioneer Place, where they were having a community market, then walked along the RiverWalk on the Willamette River.  That evening Don and Denise had dinner out, and Susan and I drove to one of my high school friend's house to have dinner with her and her husband, as we've done before when in Portland.  They're neat people and are easy to be around.  He grilled salmon, and we ate on their deck.  The next day we had breakfast, loaded up, and left for the airport.  Our flight left a couple of hours before Don and Denise's did, but they checked in when we did, and we visited for another hour in the airport.  The first leg of our flight, which was to Houston, was on time, and the Houston to BHM leg was only a few minutes late.  Katie picked us up at the airport.  Tobie was still up, so we had a glass of wine, then went to bed.  The next morning we stayed with the girls while they went to work.  Katie came home after a meeting, and after a short visit with her, we loaded up and returned home.  We were pretty tired, so we had a nap after playing with the dogs for awhile.  It was good to be home, but it's hard to believe the trip for which we had planned for months is now just memories ... but very positive ones.