Drive up the Oregon Coast 101 - Part 2

Bye bye Crescent City, hello 101 to Cannon Beach, which takes about 10 hours with oh so lovely scenery. Much of the coastline looks like this, a simply beautiful drive.






On a whim, Dennis stopped on a whim, the guy has great whims. This is from Port Orford, where you could walk down the hill and walk on this beach. Some of the most photographed natural landmarks-coast, dunes, lighthouses, giant rocks, forest, most of the entire coast is a national park, they are everywhere.


Another view from the bottom - you could see starfish, crabs, sea cucumbers, all in that area where the tide comes in and out, and there wasn't many people around, it was freezing, but sunny, exhilarating to say the least.
We payed $9 a piece to see this, keep in mind we were on vacation and stopping on whims, so take this with a grain of salt, but in Florence we took an elevator down several hundred feet to the Sea Lion Caves to look out on a natural cave where sea lions come to have babies. Apparently a couple of years ago an Orca got in there and caused some havoc about the same week we visited- we paused a few extra minutes just in case something exciting happened, it didn't so we went outside. You can visit yourselves, they have a live web cam. More sea lions. Oh this picture reminds me of a terrible, terrible smell, that I could not escape. We paused here too despite the terrible smell in case an Orca came, or a Gray Whale, but alas, they did not. The funniest thing that happened is that in the parking lot of this place a man in a van asked Dennis - "anything to see in there?" (he asked as if weighing the decision to get out of his van) (Dennis is standing in front of a giant sign that says "Sea Lion Cave"), Dennis said, "Just some seals man," and kept walking. Totally awesome. We laughed about that for a few more hours.

I drove for several more hours through Yachats, Newport, Tillamook, to get to this place, the mecca for Goonies everywhere, Haystack Rock. Can't you see Chunk and Data running across the beach? Ah, good memories. It was like 8pm when we got here, it gets dark late there, and it was cold. Dennis looks happy, doesn't he? I might have been driving him crazy, or he was just cold, it was pretty cold there, but the fireplace smell was still there that I remember. I have a similar photo of myself from 1997 when I drove with my friend to Seattle up the 101, except that was in Feb, this is May and I look pretty cold too. Next came the scary trek through the mountains on Hwy 26 to Portland, yaay! It was scary cuz it was dark and curvy roads, and people were zooming by the other way to get to the coast on a holiday weekend and cops were everywhere.

We reached Portland tired and weary. This hotel downtown was easy to find and beautiful, and surprisingly inexpensive. Check out these patterns & prints, yowza, and the carpet is also in the Caesars Palace rooms, which feels heavenly on your feet. We had beet, sweet potato chips and sauces and beers at the Red Star Tavern, the beer there flows like water and seriously - Bridgeport, Deshutes, Full Sail, Rogue, Widmer, and a new favorite of mine - McMinamins..