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Published: September 6th 2014
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Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach
Viewed from Tillamook Head, Ecola State Park. This morning we picked up our free coffee and danishes and fruit then chose a bench on "The Prom" to eat breakfast in the morning sun by the ocean. After a short walk across the sand to the water, we returned to quickly load up the car and head out down the coastline again.
We are sure enjoying all of the roly-poly, narrow winding roads going in and out of all the state parks, under the heavy tunnel-like canopy of trees. Even Hwy. 101 is a great curvy little highway that the Miata just seems to purr along on. And the convertible is perfect for the spectacular heat wave we're having here on the coast. It's supposed to be up into the 90's fahrenheit today and tomorrow.
Our first stop today was Ecola State Park to see one of the most photographed views on the coast; Haystack Rock with Cannon Beach in the background and also the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse (no longer in use but privately owned and now used as a columbarium). The view from the top of Tillamook Head, 1,200 feet above the sea, is spectacular!
Every summer Cannon Beach hosts one of the largest sand
castle competitions on the west coast but today it was just a really enjoyable place to stop and unwind and watch the surfers. South of Cannon Beach the road follows the coastline for a while with impressive sea stacks here and there until we found another "Haystack Rock" which is 235 feet high! The next town we stopped at was Rockaway Beach and we had lunch at the Beach Bite (Thanks for the great recommendation Pete!).
After lunch we continued on to Tillamook, famous for the Tillamook Cheese Factory. A self-guided tour through this huge facility was really interesting, ending with free samples of a variety of cheeses then we bought a dish of one of their own ice creams, Espresso Mocha flavour!
We left US-101 for a while here to follow the Three Capes Loop, stopping at Cape Meares. The now familiar beaches and sea stacks there were spectacular as always but we also climbed up into a restored 1890 lighthouse and then took a short hike to a see a weirdly contorted Sitka spruce tree known as the Octopus Tree.
From here the road is supposed to continue on to Cape Kiwanda, but it was
closed! So we had to backtrack all the way to Tillamook then get onto the far end of Three Capes Loop to see what was advertised as some of the state's wildest surf battering the coastline. Unfortunately, the water was calmer than any we had seen so far! However, there was a great sea stack, more cars driving on the beach than we'd ever seen so far, and also a huge sand dune; more of these to come in the next couple of days.
We had planned to stay in Lincoln City tonight but the ocean-view hotel did not have the cheap deal available I had planned on so we drove on to Depoe Bay ... and paid even more! Oh well, that was fine, as our luxury ocean-view room here at the Inn at Arch Rock has a spectacular ocean view and we ate supper and drank wine on our balcony while watching a pod of grey whales feeding in the harbour.
We had hoped to stay a couple of nights but the weekends are still pretty busy around here and they had nothing available for Saturday night. This got me a little worried so for the
Tillamook Rock Lighthouse
Viewed across the rocks on Cannon Beach. first time on this trip, I reserved a room for tomorrow night, further south down the coast. So tonight we picked up some snacks and wine from a nearby grocery store and ate and drank in this fabulous room overlooking the ocean.
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