Coast of Oregon

Hello from Waldport, OR!

Mom & I are a few miles south of Newport, which was my goal (we're right on track).

I didn't get up this morning until a bit after 7, but since everything was sorted out the night before we were able to leave around 8:30. A little rush-hour traffic in Kirkland, but beyond that it was rather wide open all the way. Our first stop was in Astoria, Oregon, right at the mouth of the Colombia River across from Washington. We stopped in at Fort Stevens, a coastal defense battery used from the Civil War to after WWII. They had a neat little museum in the old "war games" building close to one of the batteries. When we filled up the tank at Safeway in Astoria, we also got the tastiest tomato-basil soup from their deli... this we enjoyed at Fort Stevens, along with an avocado, some cherries and granola bars that Mom packed for us from home. It's the funniest thing: most of the buildings haven't survived, but their foundations are still there. To put them in use, they simply put picnic tables on the foundations... so you can have lunch "in" WWII army barracks. :) But we stayed in the car to eat... it was pretty windy and chilly today.

Our next stop was only a couple miles away; we visited the Fort Clatsop National Park. Loved the visitor's center... one of the neatest things was a set of specimens of plant life from the area preserved in picture frames with comments from Lewis and Clark's journals about their value and description. They also showed a half-hour movie of reenactors portraying what happened with narration from a native perspective. When we left, I felt as if I had suddenly come from 1806 onto Highway 101. That was a great little place. And they had patches too!

I was worried that we wouldn't be able to see a bit of the ocean today, given the dismal weather we had up until then. It was all gray with spots of rain and lots of fog in the hills. But by the time we were coming to the sweeping views of the coast south of Cannon Beach, it was breaking sunlight. And for the rest of the day we had lots of golden sunshine, especially going into Tillamook where we toured the cheese factory. I've been wanting to do this for years, but both times I've been by before it wasn't open. Gosh! So neat! They have a few displays about the history and function of the factory and then you go upstairs and watch the factory in work: lots of conveyor belts and hunks of cheese and dozens of workers dressed in white getting everything in place for packaging. And downstairs they have a cafe and a ice creamery with factory-direct products! I had a grilled sourdough with Tillamook cheese and bay shrimp along with a garden salad for dinner, and they also had a patch in their gift shop! I tasted some of Mom's ice cream and it was the nicest ever! So fun!

Can't describe how beautiful the coast was... imagine driving right next to the water with bays and rocks jutting out covered by hardy trees constantly being blown by heavy gusts. It's late afternoon and the sun is turning golden-orange. Up the hill, you get out at the overlook and can see nothing but ocean in all directions. The waves keep rolling in, creating little white wrinkles that stretch for miles on the perfect blue spread. And when we were a little too far inland to see the ocean, we were surrounded with tall coniferous and deciduous bright green. Oh, did we have a good time today.

Jp

PS... I'm really liking this motel. Good rate and we're on the first floor. But gosh darn it! I just had to kill a spider! :)