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Published: August 18th 2010
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And so we continued on our journey on ROUTE 101. We crossed the truss bridge from Washington State into ASTORIA. It takes forever to cross the ASTORIA BRIDGE which is the world's longest truss bridge. We spend a couple hours in Astoria. Try and find the ASTORIA COLUMN. The views are stunning. Just outside Astoria you will find FORT CLATSOP. Lewis & Clark camped there somewhere on their way in trekking west and so they now have this replica of what the fort looked like. It was actually quite interesting to walk around. They have lectures on how they produced/ made things in those days (leather, clothes, etc). It is something good to do if you have kids. And of course Oregon is just lined with forests everywhere. We just randomnly stopped and walked a 100 yards and it feels like you are completely removed from the real world. Just try it. Find a dirt road, park your car and just walk. It's good for the soul. Funniest thing happened at Fort Clatsop. So as you pull in there is this sign that reads "Fort to Sea Trail". I read it as "Fort to see Trail" (Nikkie makes so much fun
Haystack Rock
It was so cold!!!! of me with my English and this did not help). So as we pull in I see this sign (this sign points in the complete opposite direction from where the Fort is), park and start following the signs. We are probably a mile into the forest following this little path until I just could not hold it anymore and I started complaining about how far they make you walk to see this Fort. At which point Nikkie turns around and looks at me like I am crazy. So we had the whole discussion as to what the sign really said. We walked back, reread the sign and just started laughing. Oh well. We will forever laugh about that one.
And on we continued to CANNON BEACH TOWN. Park your car, hit the beach and walk to HAYSTACK ROCK. It was incredible to see the coastline with these incredible massive rocks just "sitting" in the water. Off in the distance you can see Tillamook Lighthouse. Off the subject a little, but our whole drive through Oregon (in the middle of the summer) was freezing. We never hit 55 degrees. We had a convertible and it was the funniest thing ever.
Oregon
Heceta Head Lighthouse It was 50 outside, the top was down and the heater was running on full blast.
From here we continued on to the TILLAMOOK CHEESE FACTORY. We sort of found it by accident. We got there 5 minutes before close. We grabbed some ice cream, fudge, smoked salmon, crackers and some good ol' Tillamook Cheese. By this time the sun was just about to set and we figured we will just go and sit on a cliff and watch the sun set with our Tillamook products. Newsflash: there was no sight of the ocean (Tillamook is sort of inland). So we were racing at about a 100 miles a hour to get to the ocean for sun set. We finally just gave up because there was no sign of ocean. So I pulled into a side road and we found this gap in a fence that ran into somebody grazing field. We pulled in, took all our food and sat on the hood of our car surrounded by cows as far as you can see. What a honeymoon dinner. It was awesome. Of course we drove a mile after this and BAM there was the big blue ocean. We
Sign
Ummmm!!!! just laughed.
Newport was next, but we did not spend much time here. There was a pretty bridge across one of the inlets. Just a place to sleep. Next up was HECETA HEAD LIGHTHOUSE. Park your car at the bottom and walk up to the lighthouse. Great views and an easy way to work off the cheese overload from last night. A couple miles down the road you will find the SEA LION CAVES. Take the elevator down to the bottom and see a natural cave taken over by a bunch of fat, smelly, loud, overweight sealions. It is nasty down there. Still do it though. Just to say that you did. After a little drive you will see the OREGON DUNES come into view. Find a little shop that rents dune buggys, get one and go have a good time. Next up is BROOKINGS. The coast line before Brookings is spectacular. While we were driving the mist starting rolling over the mountains/ hills and just created this incredible view. The OREGON COAST in the summer was totally not what we expected. It felt and looked like early winter. Find a little B&B in Brookings and reflect on the
Tillamook
Our dining buddies in Tillamook!!! incredible drive that you just completed the last couple days.
And the least but not least we attended the OREGON BREWERS FESTIVAL (a weekend in July) in Portland. Could really not tell you much about Portland since we essentially just slept there, but the festival was awesome. Thousands of people just getting drunk out of their mind. And the beer is awesome too. Microbreweries from all over the country come and strutt their stuff. Once you get your drink just get ready to get in line again since your beer will be gone by the time you get to the front of the line again.
So Oregon was pretty good to us book wise. We can cross of 5 things including Oregon coast, Astoria, Cannon Beach and the Oregon Brewers Festival. 20 down and 3,024 to go.
Till later
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