Day 4 of vacation sent us up through the central coast of Oregon, That picture above is at our first stop: Neptune State Park. As you can see, there is that fog again, rolling in and burning off in phases. The scenery was different minute by minute at the coast. I may have mentioned that Ed and Amy have a friend who coined the phrase "scenery fatigue." I believe she had Oregon in mind when she coined that. After a while you find yourself saying, "Oh look, yet another fabulous view."
More pictures of Neptune:
It was neat because the mouth of a river met the ocean (I can't remember the name of the river), so there was this whole ecology thing happening. Lorelei decided to build a damn, and then promptly stopped when she figured out how it affected the rest of the ecological system. Interesting lesson.
Here's my favorite picture from Neptune:
Up next was Seal Rock Park. This one also had a very cool trail down to the beach, but it was pretty well-traveled and not quite as, uh, terrifying as Whalehead. There were actual park ranger types working there and answering questions all over the place.
As you can see, the fog found us again at Seal Rock. And it was very 2001: A Space Odyssey. That big giant rock in the water definitely put me in mind of extraterrestrial activity. The middle photo gives you some idea of how large it is. I'm not going to lie, Seal Rock was a little weird. The picture just above was taken once you climb over some rocks into a deserted part of the park. There are tons and tons of birds' nests and aviary activity there.
Up next was what ended up being possibly my favorite stop along the way: Cape Foulweather. It was named by Captain James Cook, who ended up there on a particularly inclement day. The coast gets similar weather to what we see in Seattle, only more wind, so I can only imagine the shit weather that made him name it Cape Foulweather. Cape Foulweather, however, like all the capes, provides the most amazing scenery you are going to find, particularly in the good weather. The fog was in and out the day we were there, mostly out, though. There was an old lighthouse that was turned into a gift shop, with these postcard-worthy views.
It's hard to see from those pictures above, but there is a reef out in the open water that is maybe a mile from shore. The shop attendant told us that just before the fog covered it over, there was a pod of gray whales out just beyond the reef. They migrate May-September, so there are lots of spots along the coast that you can see them, but Cape Foulweather's vantage point is probably one of the better views.
I loved Cape Foulweather. It's a perfect representation of the Pacific NW. It's so aptly named for half of the time, and then quite the misnomer for the rest of the time. There seems to be no middle ground at the coast: the weather is just beyond terrible, or it's so amazing you can't imagine living anywhere else.
As we headed up the coast, we took a slight detour from our destination (our beloved Pacific City), and went a bit north to Cape Meares, yet another lighthouse and insanely gorgeous spot.
We had some more fog at Cape Meares, so not quite so many pictures of the landscape. I imagine, though, you get the idea by now.
Oregon is just silly with gorgeous life-affirming beauty.
Finally, we arrived at our destination; Pacific City, OR. Our special place that we love. And it was wonderful to stop for 4 days and take in nothing but waves, salt air, and beer brewed across the way. Actually, by day 3, I was getting a little irritated with the surf for being so loud. It woke me up pretty early. But it's not so bad to wake up really early on vacation, go sit on the porch and watch the dory fishing boats head out to sea. Right after they go, the surfers start showing up. We could do worse.
There was one afternoon that Shawn and Lorelei had gone on a hike and they were supposed to meet me at the brewery for a late-afternoon snack. As it turns out, they were tired and fell asleep back at our cottage, leaving me at the brewery all by myself. It wasn't all bad. I sat outside on the porch chairs and watched the waves. Beer is the great equalizer. I met some folks from Tacoma (shoot, we are practically neighbors!), a nice couple from Portland, and then another nice couple from Minnesota celebrating the wife's birthday. We all shared some stories about our travels, and then we watched as a pod of whales lazily made their way along their migratory path. We couldn't tell if they were grays or orcas because none of them crested, but we saw a tail and lots of water spouts. It was one of the nicest afternoons ever in the history of afternoons.
The people who had rented the cottage next door to ours were from Akron! That was fun - they spotted our Ohio State gear right away. I will never stop getting a kick out of seeing Ohio folks out here. Wish a few more of you could make it out here. Ahem.
There were so many neat parts of this trip. It was definitely nice to hang out in Pacific City and rest up, but the journey was really the best part. The picture above is a lighthouse off in the distance - I can't remember which one - but the picture is taken from Highway 101. It was maybe the prettiest drive I've ever been on. We said when we arrived in Pacific City that we didn't need to drive 101 through Oregon again. We've done it, it's amazing, we can explore other places now. I don't know, though. I could totally do it again. There were a lot of places we didn't stop, and there are some places I'd like to stop at again. Sometimes once isn't enough.
Today is the first day of fall and in Seattle it's raining. Of course it is. Just like how summer arrives like clockwork after July 4, today the rain has returned. The forecast will be the same for the next 5 months: rain, getting colder, some more rain, dark. That makes it even more pleasant to be writing about our summer adventures.
The news isn't all bad, however. With the darkness comes the twinkle lights all over downtown. Pretty soon Nordstrom will have it's Christmas decorations up, and Macy's will have the big star on its downtown store. Shawn is going to call the chimney sweep this week so we can have our fires in that beautifully crafted fireplace this winter. We will finally start seeing snow atop the Olympics again.
But until all that happens, let's keep thinking summer, just for a little while longer.
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