North Bend/Coos Bay, Or and Brookings, OR

I am combining 2 stops into one blog.  When I was in North Bend/Coos Bay and Brookings, Oregon it was grey and rainy a good bit of the time. 

The first couple of times that I saw sea stacks in the haze I thought they were magical and mystical -

But after seeing them like this for many days, it became much less magical!  The picture below was taken on a day that it tried to clear up!

I suppose that it is like this so much that people just get out anyway.  I’m trying to learn to do that, but it’s hard!

When I took the picture below, I just sat in the car and you can see why.

I went to Bandon, OR one day and enjoyed the town and the beach very much.  Next time I’m in the area I would like to stay in this town.  Bandon Beach had a Wildlife preserve that was great.  There were birds, seals, sea lions, sea stacks and sea life.

I went to Cape Arago State park one day and happened to be at the tide pools the same day a class was there.  What a great field trip.  But too many people for me.  I went to the other side of the cove until they left.

In the picture above there are hundreds of seals and sea lions.

I also drove down to California and saw the redwoods, but I enjoyed it so much that I decided to camp there for a few days so I’ll save those pictures for my next blog.

Newport, OR

I headed down the coast again, this time stopping in Newport, OR.  I stayed at Newport Marina and RV park, which made for some nice morning and/or evening walks around the boats and out to the pier.  Below is the marina and bridge behind the campground. 

While in Newport I went to the nearby Yaquina lighthouse.

  This is a great park, I went there more for the tide pools and beach scenery than the lighthouse.  I can’t get enough of tide pools and there were some great sights here.  Before getting to the tide pools, you had to walk over the cobblestone beach which wasn’t that easy.  The rocks were for the most part probably 1 – 4 inches and kind of like walking in sand dunes.  You step on them and they slide!  It made for an interesting trip down and back up the rocky slope. The tide pools were great, the best I have seen so far--

  

The pictures above show Orange and purple sea stars, purple urchins and Giant Green Anemones. 

The Oregon Coast Aquarium and the Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center were just across the street from my campground.  Both were interesting.  The Science Center’s main attraction is a Giant Pacific Octopus.

I went to several beaches around Newport.  I particularly enjoyed the seal rock recreation area.

Not only was their great scenery, but I found many agates and petrified wood – including an agatized fossil!!  I went to this beach several times, one time I went at low tide to not only hunt for rocks, but also to see the tide pools.

There were hundreds of sea stars and anenomes.  Note because it is low tide and these are out of water, the anenomes are closed up.

As I’ve mentioned I love to watch the waves hit the rocks, so here are more pictures -

The one above is a blowhole in Cape Perpetua Scenic Area – a place where I did some great hikes. 

Not far from Cape Perpetua was another lighthouse.  In addition to that, there were a bunch of seals and sea lions just below the lighthouse overlook.

One day, I went beach walking at Seal Rock park and in going back to the car I missed the turnoff for the parking lot.  I ended up walking about 3 miles extra.  I knew I had walked to far, but the beach was very interesting -

I later found out that I was at Ona Beach State Park. 

Next I’ll be in Coos Bay, OR.

Tillamook, OR

After Astoria, I headed down the Oregon coast.  For a few nights, I stayed in Tillamook.  Tillamook is known for Tillamook cheese.  I had never heard of it, but it seems to be popular in the Northwest.  Below is a picture of their factory.  The color is a bit off due to their lights and taking pictures through the glass windows.   This is the part of the factory where they cut and package the cheese. 

My favorite place around Tillamook was Oceanside Beach.  At Oceanside I looked for agates.  Also there were sea stacks, sea life and an interesting way to get to one of the beaches. 

To get to my favorite beach in Oceanside, you had to take a dark tunnel from one beach.  Going thru the dark tunnel, you had to step on and over rocks – it made for an exciting trip!  The picture above is the view just as I was exciting the tunnel.  The picture below is the tunnel entrance/exit – as you can see it’s not fancy!

Oceanside is one of several cities along the 3 capes scenic loop.  I spent several days touring this area.   The picture below is of one of the spits taken from a wayside on the drive. 

I enjoyed several hikes while in this area.  I went to another waterfall. It was misting the day I went to Munson Creek waterfall, but I’m learning that it does that a lot and you just have to keep going.

Another great hike I did was the Cape Lookout trail.  This trail takes you thru a rain forest while hiking out to the ocean on the cape.  It rained part of the way, but I figured rain while hiking in a rain forest made sense.  The ferns and moss were great! Having the rain forest on one side of you and the ocean on the other (down the cliff) was a great treat!!

Another of the capes was Cape Meares.  Just like waterfalls, I could just sit here and watch the water.  I love watching the waves hit the sea stacks.

Astoria, OR

After the Columbia River Gorge, I headed for the Oregon coast.  My current plan is to take several weeks and head down the coast.

My first stop was in Astoria, OR.  I stayed at Fort Stevens State Park.  While I’m not into history I enjoyed this park.  In addition to the military part of this park, they have a great beach and some wonderful bike trails. To be honest I didn’t go to the historical parts of the park, but I did find the shipwreck interesting.  This is the Peter Iredale, which was wrecked in 1906.

One of the things I was really looking forward to in Oregon was the sea stacks, I have seen so many pictures of these and was excited to see my first ones.  My first good view was from Ecola State Park. 

I had heard about this restaurant that I wanted to try, they only have 3 things on the menu – Fish, Chips and Soda.  But the Fish they use is Albacore Tuna.  I had never had fried tuna so I thought I would give it a try – wow, it was fantastic.  I tried to convince myself that because it was fish it wasn’t too bad for me!!  Not only was the food good, the restaurant (if you can call it that) was very different -

Yep, it was in an old boat.  The other side had stairs leading up to the cabin, where they had made a window to order from.  

Columbia River Gorge – Part 2

I realized that I should have mentioned where the Columbia River Gorge is.  The river is between Oregon and Washington.  Most of what I did was on the Oregon side, but I did go into Washington a couple of times.  I went to Vancouver, WA to go to Trader Joes and the credit union. 

I was expecting colder and rainy weather, but I wasn’t expecting this much cold and rain.  The snow level was down to 2000 feet for a few days, so some of the mountain passes were closed.  One of the hikes I wanted to do I couldn’t get to because of the snow.  Of course I didn’t find that out until I was just about there and found the road closed.  But on the drive I did see Mount Hood from several locations.

In the picture above, you can see Mt. Hood in the background, lava beds in the middle and the top of some fruit trees in the foreground.  I did make it to Government Camp (a ski resort) several days after the snow and went for a short walk in the snow.  Well being from Ga, I’m really not used to walking in snow.  When I started walking I quickly realized I wasn’t going to go far.  Some times my feet would sink just a couple of inches and other times they would sink 10 inches or so.  As I was going back to my car I noticed that the other people there had snowshoes on!!  I had a good laugh over that!

A few more waterfalls -

The above is Upper McCord Falls.  They are only about 64 feet, but one of my favorites.  The trail to the falls was interesting.  They had to blast out a trail on the the 400 foot walls around another water fall.   I also went to Elowah falls on this hike.

I was picking out pictures for this blog and put both of these in my temp area.  After looking at them,  I noticed how similar these falls are. 

The one on the left is Wahclella falls and the one on the right is Wahkeena_falls. 

One day, I went to Tom McCall Nature preserve and Rowena Crest.  This area is known for it’s wildflowers, but was extremely windy.

 

As you may have noticed, I like taking pictures of trails I hike.  Well one of them had a very different view that what I was used to--

This was the Starvation Creek Trail.  The trailhead was just off I-84 and as you can see was right beside the interstate for a short distance.  It was worth it.  I didn’t do the whole trail, but saw 3 more waterfalls. 

Next I go to Astoria, OR.

Columbia River Gorge – Part 1

I am really behind in this blog – Again!.  I am hoping to start blogging more often.  When I wait so long it’s sometimes hard to remember things – such as the names of some of the waterfalls you will see below.

I spent 2 1/2 weeks along the River Gorge, part of the time in Troutdale, OR in a private campground and part of the time in Memaloose State Park.  The River Gorge area is beautiful.  Between the waterfalls, wildflowers, ferns, moss…  I loved it!!  Between I-84 and OR 30 there is some great scenery just from the road. 

Below is a view of the Gorge taken on a foggy morning. 

This is Multnomah Falls, probably the most popular falls in the area. 

This area was developed in the early 1900’s.  For example the bridge in the above picture was built in 1914.  Below is the trail leading to Shepperd’s Dell Fall’s.  I kept wondering what it would look like if it was done today – probably a white PVC fence.

Latourell falls (248 ft) is a drive-up falls (several of the falls are just off the road).  But I walked to the bottom of it and got rather wet from the mist.

One day, I drove into Portland and went to the Rhododendron Gardens.  It was great. 

Some of the rhododendron’s were so big they looked like trees.   This picture was taken from underneath the rhododendron – not your typical view!

I don’t know what type of pine tree this is, but I don’t think we had this in Georgia -

One of the hikes I took was the Triple falls loop.  The first falls on the loop was Upper Horsetail or Ponytail falls (about 100 ft high). 

You can see the trail goes behind the waterfall.  Below is another view and you can see people going under it in this one -

The trail was a bit steep in a few places --

Triple falls was well worth the hike -

Some wildflowers that I saw on the trails -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The yellow flower was about the size of a pencil eraser, but the red dot on each flower intrigued me.

To be continued--