Cheese, Trees, and Ocean Breeze(s)

As we left the Redwoods and reentered Oregon, we wanted to hug the Oregon Coast to enjoy the views and hopefully spot a whale while maybe recon-ing a couple/three places we might want to volunteer post-Alaska. So we took HWY 101 and drove the entire length of the Oregon’s beautiful coastline. We’re pretty sure that we saw a couple of whale spouts. We struggled with weather a bit in this state; our first day was sunny and warm, but it was followed by 8 days of cold rain. Dawn wanted to title the blog “soaking wet and full of cheese,” but it was rejected onto the digital editing floor. We still love Oregon and their state parks, and we found some cool volunteering opportunities but now we’re debating whether Oregon’s winter weather is going to be our thing.

If you haven’t spent time in Oregon, just get to the state and check it out. We’ve now bounced around quite a bit across the US and have concluded that we could easily live in this state. It is a worthy destination as a vacation or longer-term. There are plenty of opportunities to hike, bike, kayak, or just plain chill and enjoy the magnificent views. So what about the focus of the last thirteen days - the coast? Holy smokes is it gorgeous. And even though we griped about the weather, there’s something stunning about an angry sea and deserted beaches that is compelling.

We basically bounced our way up the coast - Oregon has something like 17 state parks with campgrounds along the 101 and at least that many more day use areas. The people of Oregon got it written into law that the beach belongs to the people (there are no private beaches) and you can access it from just about everywhere. And their state parks are wonderful - clean, well managed, generous sites, and of the ones we stopped at, only one didn’t have a strong LTE signal (we know, we know, priorities).

Harris Beach was our first and southernmost camping stop. You could see the ocean from our site and there are tidepools accessible from very short walks. It’s also just south of the Boardman Scenic Corridor which has great access to the Oregon Coast Trail and crazy gorgeous viewpoints. No whales spotted, but we ran into a guy who said an hour prior one had breached and put on quite the show. Missed it by that much! We saw live starfish (and not Frank the Cat’s, thank you very much), green anemones, sculpin, hermit crabs, “regular” crabs, mussels, mites, clams, and gooseneck barnacles (which we dubbed “elephant toes”).

We jumped up to the Sunset Bay Campground. This one was tucked into the trees on a quiet bay. No cell signal, but great access to the bay, views of a lighthouse, the Shore Acres Gardens, and Cape Arago! We got to see sea lions and think we saw a couple blowhole spouts. Yay! We did a day trip to Bandon, which claims the title of cranberry capital! Of course, we picked up some cranberry jam and cranberry vinaigrette and chocolate covered cranberries. We enjoyed some absurdly fresh fish and chips and crab chowder right on their waterfront. We also stumbled onto the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve. We figured it was a “stop in, putter for five minutes, leave” sort of place! We were glad we were wrong! Their Visitor Center was well done with interactive displays, hiking trails, and more. Despite the rain we got in a great hike, and wished we could return during the summer to enjoy one of the science camps they host there (alas, they are for kids). We also had our first sighting of a rough-skinned newt, which was way cool (duh!)!

Viewpoint between Shore Acres and Sunset Bay

We did the shortest YOFO jump ever to get to a campground in the Forest Service’s Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area - less than 70 miles! Well worth the extra stop though as it let us play in the sand dunes and then meet up with Diane and her husband (Diane is a former co-worker who saw the light and moved to Oregon years ago...and now jokingly tells everyone not to come because it rains too much! Ha!)

Yaquina Head Lighthouse from the cobble beach

Next day we continued north to South Beach State Park. This was another really nice park and we explored the jetty. It also gave us the chance to check out Cape Perpetua (home of the spouting horn at Cook’s Chasm, Thor’s Well, and the Devil’s Churn among other coolness), the Yaquina Head Area (lighthouse and tidepools that we were unable to explore since Poseidon was very angry that day), and the Depoe Bay Area with its whale watching center (again, no sightings because of the rough seas, but awesome wave action). We were *slightly* disappointed that we have, as yet, been unable to record a Darwin Awards moment. We thought we had a strong contender with the woman carrying a toddler on slippery, wet rocks to get close to Thor’s Well, but thankfully no one was swept out to sea.

A good part of our motivation in slowly migrating north like the whales was to visit the Tillamook Factory. We camped at Nehalem Bay State Park just north and made the trip to our church of cheese. Tillamook is also our “crack” dealer. We wrote last year about discovering Tillamook Creamery’s Salted Caramel Toffee Gelato. We list it on our shopping list simply as “crack” - it’s that good. The self-guided factory tour was great and let us pretend feed and milk a cow as well as point and shout as we followed 40 pound blocks of cheese through the process. So cool. And yes, they have a restaurant on site. And yes, they have a line just for ice cream. There’s also a cool and slightly off Air Museum. The cool part is the large wooden hangar built for Navy Blimps during WWII (and that’s not even an interservice rivalry barb). The slightly off part is that it’s got everything from memorabilia to dioramas to a train to a blimp with painted on aliens inside. Apparently some owls live in the blimp hangar also, because, why not. Nehalem Bay SP is fantastic - and they have both a horse camp and an airstrip! So, really, there’s no excuse not to make your way there. We missed our chance to go kayaking in the bay or up the Nehalem River because it was raining, but if we go back we want to make sure we do that.

There was no way this picture wasn’t making it into the blog.

We wanted to head back toward the Portland area to catch up with friends. We’re so thankful that Jerome and Marie could come hang out in Tillamook. And Jincy and Alice came out to play on a school night! Jincy led us to the one non-hoppy microbrewery in the area (sorry, Alice!) and we had a fantastic time.

To make our social rounds, we got a chance to revisit LL Stub Stewart SP. It’s crazy that we were there in October of the first YOFO year! We explored more of their trails and continued finding white trillium and adding more wildflowers to our “might, possibly, be able to re-identify this plant in the future” list. The Calypso orchid was a special treat and the deer certainly seemed to be enjoying the Oregon grapes and red flower currant plants (see what we did there?!).

The Peter Airedale wreck is being reclaimed by the ocean

As part of the coastal state park research, we stumbled upon the description for Fort Stevens SP. It sits on the Oregon side of where the Columbia River meets the ocean. The park has a legit ship wreck (the Peter Iredale, from 1906) and also has the distinction of being the site of the only foreign attack on the continental US since the War of 1812. Whoa. Coastal artillery units have been here (off and on) from the Civil War through WWII. A Japanese submarine fired multiple rounds on the site during WWII. The park has a historical area that preserves some of the structures and provides context.

Fort Stevens is close to Fort Clatsop - the place that the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery expedition overwintered 1805-1806. We spent time wandering between the recreated fort, the canoe landing, and explored the visitor center. Cool bits of history.

And now we are off to see friends and family in the Seattle area before we pop back east for a quick visit prior to continuing our Alaska-bound adventures. We’re really looking forward to the journey and hope that our meandering pace continues so that we can explore more of each place.