Along the Oregon Coast

After our day in Portland we spent the night in Seaside. The next morning we woke up nice and early.. and as horrible as it is to wake up early on a vacation sometimes it's worth it.. especially on that particular day. We had a quick complimentary hotel breakfast and drove the 15 mins to Ecola State Park. The day was cold and foggy, not exactly ideal for a day spent along the Oregon coast.. but as H says though never abides by "you get what you get and you don't get upset" 

When we neared the entrance of the park it was so deserted we almost thought it was closed. It wasn't. phew. In fact because we were there early.. around 8:30 am it was almost like a private beach.

When we got to the entrance we went right and found ourselves parking at Indian Beach. There were no more than 20 people on the beach.. mainly surfers. Pictures can not do justice to how breath taking the beach was.

and when we had are fill we got back into our car and drove to the other side of the park towards the Crescent Beach Trail. It was a 2.5 mile loop and steep and slippery in a few places, not what we had expected but the boys hung in there.. *so proud*

and we were rewarded with a pristine almost empty beach :)

And if you ventured a bit into the icy cold water you could see between the two rocks emerge through the fog Haystack Rock on Canon Beach as seen in The Goonies. We didn't make it to Cannon Beach though that was the beach on the 'original' itinerary. We still had many stops to make along the way. On our hike back to the car we saw dozens and dozens of cars waiting outside the park entrance waiting to get in. It paid off to wake up a little early.

We ventured south along the Oregon coast stopping in Manzanita to eat some of Jim's Manzanita Mudd Dogs.. it was an outdoor sitting area where Jim himself made your hot dog and all proceeds go to the Mudd Nick Foundation. OH MY GOD.. it was so so good. 

Afterwards we stopped at Manzanita Coffee Co to grab some ice cream before we hit the road again.

Our next stop was Cape Meares which we found to be closed. The boys napped through it all.

We stopped at a road side cherry stand.. did not know such a thing even existed. So yum.

We sopped at the Devil's Punch Bowl. It was a low tide so we didn't see anything too exciting.. it was also so very windy and foggy. But while we stretched our legs we spotted a whale far far far off in the distance. So far off we weren't even sure we saw it.. till we saw another.. and another.. they were so far away they were just a speck in the distance and yet it was so exciting. 

We made another stop at Yaquina Head Lighthouse.. We had to pay to get into the area and there we were parked right in front of the lighthouse and couldn't even see it.. so foggy. The girl at the entrance booth acted shocked when we told her how foggy it was and she should be telling people they wouldn't see anything rather than just taking their money.

We were done for the day.. we were all tired. We stopped in Newport for some thai food.. M&P Authentic Thai Cuisine. It was fine.

Then we headed to Florence were we were going to spend the night. 

Even with a few disappointments it was an incredible day.. Ecola State Park was stunning.. we could have spent the whole day there exploring. And the coast was so beautiful, eerie on our foggy day.

      

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