Oregon - Cape Meares

On our last full day on the Pacific coast, we went to Cape Meares State Park. As we approached the park we noticed three rocks out in the ocean. 

We later found out that these rocks were the first National Wildlife Refuge west of the Mississippi.

Cape Meares boasts Oregon’s shortest lighthouse.

But since it is on a 200ft cliff it didn’t have to be too tall.

Like the Heceta Head Lighthouse, volunteers brought small groups up the lighthouse and shared a little about the history.  The light is no longer active, so the tour got right up next to the lens.  This particular light illuminated a red and white pattern as the light rotated. 

Here are the views to the north

and to the south.

You can even see the tip of Cape Lookout (where Bill was yesterday) in the distance.

Can you guess what this tree is called?

They call it the Octopus Tree.  We also saw Oregon’s largest Sitka Spruce.  Then we hiked down, down, down toward the beach until Barbara saw that you needed a rope to descend the last little slope.  

Bill made it to the beach.

The day ended with a last walk along the campground’s beach at sunset. Still married…

Oregon - Cape Lookout

We walked the campground beach in the morning and watched the fog lift.

In the afternoon, we looked back at that beach from a roadside viewpoint.

Barbara dropped Bill off at the Cape Trail with the intent that Bill would hike to the viewpoint at the end of the cape and back (4.8 miles), then hike the trail back to the campground (2.3 miles). Here is Bill at the viewpoint.

The Cape Trail has a handful of places where it pops out to the edge of the cliff. This is the beach south of Cape Lookout.

At this same place, gray whales were surfacing below the cliff and Bill saw the entire whale as it skimmed below the surface of the water.  Can you see the whale in this picture?

The hike had an unexpected challenge – the trail back to the campground was closed due to a damaged footbridge.  No cell service at the campground to call Barbara, so it took a bit of road walking and guessing where to connect back to the trail to make it “home.”  :-)

In the meantime, Barbara sat by the ocean reading and working on her Bible study.

The day ended taking pictures as the sun set over the Pacific.

Oregon - Heceta Head

We would have loved to explore the Oregon coast further south and see Crater Lake, but we decided to save that for a future trip where we will also explore California.  So we headed back north.

We saw the Heceta Head lighthouse from the road a few days ago (see Oregon Coast), but now stopped to check out the park and lighthouse. From the beach, we got a good view of one of the many historic bridges that dot the Oregon coast.

The lighthouse is situated above another lovely cove. 

The former duplex for the two assistant lighthouse keepers is now a Bed & Breakfast.

The lighthouse is very similar to the Umpqua Lighthouse we saw a few days ago, but its location and restoration give it more charm.

A great group of volunteers give free tours inside the lighthouse.  We got a closer look at the light and first-order Fresnel lens. The lamp is now electric, but even with a kerosene lamp, the light through the lens was visible 21 miles away.

Then Bill hiked up above the lighthouse and got this picture just as the light rotated in his direction.

We’re staying at Cape Lookout, another ocean-side campground, so ended our day with a short walk to the beach.

Oregon - Cape Arago

Most days we follow a well-researched travel itinerary, but today we just winged it.  Based on a recommendation, we visited Shore Acres State Park about 45 minutes south.  We heard that the park had a nice garden.

When we arrived, we had lunch on a bench overlooking the ocean.

Then we serendipitously took a trail hugging the coast giving view after view of the ocean. The 45-degree tilt in the rocks is caused by the earth’s plates colliding.

We kept going and going until we were in Sunset Bay State Park and spotted the Cape Arago Lighthouse.  It’s on an island, so that was about the best view we could get of it.

Backtracking along the trail, we spotted some harbor seals.  A mother and baby were especially cute to watch.

We then went to the garden. Even though it is August, it was beautiful and had lots of color.

After the garden, we ventured down to Simpson’s Beach – a small sandy beach in a picturesque cove.

Shore Acres was the private estate of Louis Simpson, a lumberman and shipbuilder. He acquired the marvelous property and built a grand house on the bluff with a formal garden. He transferred ownership to the state of Oregon in 1942 with the intent to make it a public park. The house was later torn down, but the gardens continued to attract visitors and the property and gardens are now maintained as a state park.

Bill hiked past the beach to Cape Arago State Park, which afterwards we drove to. In 1932, Simpson gave 134 acres of the land to Oregon for the park. There is a viewpoint where you hear the barking of hundreds of sea lions.  You can see them on the rocks in the distance, though they were farther out then the seals we spotted previously.

At another viewpoint we caught glimpses of whales but didn’t get any good pictures.  We’d see spouts of water, their humped back, and an occasional wave of their tail.

All in all it was a great serendipitous day.

Oregon Dunes

With overcast skies, we headed to Umpqua Lighthouse.

Our first impression was the sounds.  Nope, not the ocean sounds.  This location overlooks the “recreation” part of Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area.  Large parts of the park are designated areas for all-terrain vehicle (ATV) use and Dune Fest was this weekend.  So the dunes between the lighthouse and the ocean were a sea of ATVs with snarling engines bouncing over the sand.

We aimed for a letterbox, so Barbara could pick up her first Oregon box.  On the way we found a private little lakeside beach for lunch.  Here’s our view.

Later, the Oregon Dunes Visitor Center pointed us to the non-ATV areas and told us about an elk viewing area nearby.  So we got to see some Roosevelt elk.

The Oregon Dunes Trail went over dunes, through dense vegetation, along the ocean, and then circled back.  Bill did the entire hike, while Barbara went out to the ocean and back.  Hiking on soft sand is surprisingly slow and tiring (even for Bill). Here are the dunes.

Way in the distance we saw kids sliding down the dunes (reminded us of our girls sliding at White Sands).  In this next picture you might be able to make out people hiking below and the ocean beyond the vegetation.

It was almost like skiing as we slid down the bank where we took this picture. See the posts? That’s how the trail is marked in the dune areas.

The beach walk limited access to walking just on wet sand to protect the Western Snowy Plover.  We’re wondering if these shore birds were the plovers.

The ocean never gets old, even on a cloudy day.

Oregon Coast

We headed south on Route 101, giving us glimpses of Oregon’s foggy coast as we meandered along.  Since we had a ways to go, we did not spend too much time sightseeing, but it was lunchtime when we drove by Tillamook Cheese, so we stopped.

This cheese factory has become a popular tourist destination.  We saw the factory production line as the cheese was cut and packaged, sampled 3 flavors of Tillamook ice cream, and of course bought some cheese (when has cheese ever gone bad in our house?).

One thing we noticed as we continued our drive was that every Oregon town had its own unique (often tiny) Espresso shop with “ESPRESSO” in large letters and the shop’s name in smaller font.  Most had drive-through windows.  No Dunkin Donuts here and surprisingly few Starbucks.

The backpacker had just been at the “drive-through” window.

Luckily the fog cleared just enough for us to see Heceta Head Lighthouse from a pull-off.

A quick jaunt from the Oregon Dunes campground gave this view before the light faded. One instant you are walking through forest and the next instant you are climbing a sand dune.

Southwest Washington – Day 2

Today we enjoyed more sun, letterboxes, and coastal views.  We tried for two letterboxes.  At the first we couldn’t find the box.  Then Barbara said to Bill, “Sorry to step on your foot.”  Bill replied, “That isn’t my foot.”  Low and behold, it was the letterbox.

Unlike most letterboxes, the second box required bushwhacking on a very overgrown trail to retrieve.  Bill valiantly retrieved the box, brought it back to Barbara (waiting on the paved road), and then bushwhacked back to return it.  Barbara thinks she has a pretty wonderful husband. 

Then we spent a little time just exploring the coast – seeing an abandoned military gun battery,

lighthouses,

wildlife,

rocky coast,

and walking the beach at our campground.

  

It was very windy!

And Bill went back to the beach to catch the sunset.