Hello Everyone! I hope you are all enjoying everything that August has to offer, wherever you are. Just today as I was driving, I saw the first hint of autumn colors in the trees. My friends are posting back-to-school photos of their kids and Penn State football starts this Saturday, so I know that summer is going to start winding down really soon. While I love the fall and am very much looking forward to it this year, I still want to hang onto summer for a few more weeks before it goes. This week I have completed my journey up the Oregon coast with some gorgeous scenery and some wonderful small towns. The road has left the ocean and turned down the Columbia River at Astoria, a fun and fascinating town I’ve been in since Sunday and am a little sad to leave. It’s been another great week out here, so let’s jump right into it.
When I left you last week, I was in Lincoln City. When I finished with this post, I wanted to make some tracks up the coast, so I headed north for Pacific City. Pacific City is a cute little surfer town or maybe village, but it is definitely not a city. I spent a little bit of time on the beach there, but decided it was too small to blend into the scenery for the night, so I moved along up to Oceanside. Oceanside was even smaller, and reminded me of a summer camp resort but I did enjoy a lovely sunset there on Tunnel Beach. Tunnel Beach gets its name because there is literally a tunnel burrowed through the rock from the town beach to the adjacent beach which is both weird and wonderful. It was windy out, but also really beautiful and the sunset was a good one. Running out of daylight and time, I headed up to Cape Mears and parked at a trailhead for the night. There was one other truck parked there and it was a delightfully quiet night at the end of the road.
I woke up early the next day and headed down to the Cape Mears parking lot right when it opened. I enjoyed my morning coffee looking out over the ocean and then wandered out to the lighthouse, a stubby little fellow out on the end of the cape. As some of you may recall, I’m an avid collector of passport stamps, both from National Parks and from lighthouses, and this was one of the ones I don’t have. The gift shop wasn’t going to open until 11, but I decided to stick around and take care of some cleaning and maintenance on my van while I waited. As I was wandering back to the parking lot, I met a kind man who was staying in his summer cottage nearby and was out early watching a pod of grey whales off the coast between the cape and the distant Three Arches Rocks (which are straight out from Tunnel Beach). I sat with him for a while and watched the whales move around the cape. There were at least four of them out there and it was cool to watch them surface and breathe and then dive again. After about a half an hour with the whales (and a few sea lions), I headed back up the hill and got to work. I got my stamp when the shop opened and then headed around and out to Tillamook.
Tillamook is a proper town, with curbs and streets and businesses, and it was good to see after the tiny towns of the day before. I imagine most Americans have seen Tillamook cheese in their grocery store at some point and this is where it comes from. It’s a dairy region and the town has a whiff of manure to it when the wind is right. The main Tillamook Creamery is just north of town and is a serious tourist attraction along the coast. And really who can turn down free cheese and ice cream? I did enjoy watching the cheese-making process which reminded me of when I learned how cheese was made for the first time in Wisconsin just a few years ago. I decided I needed more ice cream than the tiny sample scoop, so I got a humongous cone of it and sat outside enjoying it in the sunshine. I couldn’t resist trying their Marionberry flavor which makes me chuckle as Washington D.C.’s mayor when I was a kid was named Marion Barry. Marionberries are a beloved Oregon berry from Marion County and have no relation to the aforementioned mayor. I imagine when he was in the news that people from Oregon had a chuckle as much as I did eating their ice cream. By the time I finished my double scoop, the day was getting on. I did want to see the beach towns further north, but I was afraid I wouldn’t find a good place to sleep, so I returned to Tillamook and stayed there for a second night as it was quiet and easy. I had a couple of good beers at the Pelican Brewery which has several taprooms up and down the coast before calling it an early night. All that ice cream had work me out.
The following morning was bright and sunny, so I bolted out of town early and headed for the beach. I wasn’t 20 minutes up the road when I pulled into a parking lot next to the red caboose visitor center at Rockaway Beach. Rockaway Beach was lovely and I decided I might just hang around for a while. I pulled my chair down to the sand and sat in the sun, working on my tan and reading my book. I knew that summer days were in limited supply, so maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea to take a nice beach day. Screw my plans – this whole journey is about making changes to the itinerary when something better comes along. For lunch, I went down to the original Pronto Pup location which claims to be the originator of that great American carnival treat, the corn dog. As the story goes, George and Versa Boyington were running a small hot dog stand on the beach in the 1930s when a sudden rainstorm came through and ruined all of their buns. Thinking quickly, they essentially whipped up some pancake batter and dipped the hot dogs in that before tossing the whole thing in the fryer. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention, and in this case it was also a stroke of good fortune. Pronto Pup and their corn dogs became a hit and they opened other locations around the country. It’s always great to learn a story like that and I enjoyed my Pronto Pup corn dog so much, I had a second one. After lunch, I had a nice wander and took some photos around town before going back to the beach to read for a while longer. Rockaway Beach is also a small town without a lot of nooks to tuck into for the night, so since I was only 20 minutes up the road, I returned to Tillamook for another night.
Since the next day was Saturday in mid-August, I figured it would be busy along the coast, so I got a good jump on the day and cruised north, through Rockaway Beach and on up the highway. I stopped for a while in the pleasant little community of Manzanita and had a lovely walk up and down the main drag. Then I continued on north to Cannon Beach. Cannon Beach is another cute little beachfront community and home to one of Oregon’s most famous and most photographed sea stacks, Haystack Rock. I parked on the southern end of the town and walked a couple of miles up the beach, past Haystack Rock and into the main part of town. While I have seen many sea stacks along the way, Haystack is definitely a good one. I took a lot of photos there and understand why it’s such a well-loved photography spot. By the time I got into the main part of town, I was hungry so I stopped in at a local hardware store and saloon called the Screw and Brew. It was an eclectic place as you can imagine, but a good one as well. I got to talking to a wonderful couple from Vancouver, Washington about my travels and they were kind enough to buy my lunch for me. Thank you guys very much. I enjoyed the long walk back to my van and took a little afternoon nap before continuing north to Seaside.
Seaside is a real beach resort town. It’s got bumper cars and salt water taffy stores and funnel cakes (and Pronto Pups) – you know the kind of town I’m talking about. I know they aren’t to everyone’s liking, but I love beach towns like that. They’re tacky and fun and there is a lot to look at and even though Seaside is a little worn down, I still really enjoyed it. That day Seaside was also serving as the finish line for a footrace from Mount Hood which is apparently quite a big deal. There were hundreds of tired looking people in town with medals around their necks and comfortable shoes on their feet. There was a big concert on the beach which went right up until sunset and we got another really good sunset that night. After the sun went down, I popped around to a couple of different bars to have a few beers and see where the night led. I ended up meeting a lady at the Beach Club Bar who had 8 kids and 17 grandkids and wanted to take me and two guys who were there for the race to the Elks Club for karaoke. She was insistent, so we went and it turned out to be a lot of fun. The two guys were from New Orleans, so I enjoyed chatting with them and even though I am not a huge fan of karaoke, it was still an enjoyable experience.
I thought I might stick around Seaside for another day, but the morning was grey and gloomy so I packed up and continued on towards Astoria. On the way, I stopped into Fort Clatsop which is a part of Lewis and Clark National Historical Park. Merriweather Lewis and William Clark were sent by Thomas Jefferson to map out the land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase and hopefully find a water route to the Pacific Ocean. They traveled up the Missouri River and eventually down the Columbia River until reaching the ocean in November of 1805. With winter fast approaching, they built Fort Clatsop (which is about as much of a fort as Pacific City was a city), as a wintering outpost. There they traded with the Indians, completed maps, mended clothing and equipment and hopefully enjoyed some warmth and rest as well. The park is great and I learned a lot while I was there, especially during a ranger talk about Sacajawea, the young Shoshone woman who accompanied the expedition. The ranger did a good job of separating fact from fiction and also saying that in many cases, we just don’t know what the truth is. She was a strong and capable woman, that is for sure. In the afternoon, I continued on into town and fell in love with Astoria on my first pass through. It’s the coolest new-to-me town I’ve been to in a while and I will find it hard to leave.
Astoria is a port city on the Columbia River, and was the first permanent American settlement west of the Rocky Mountains, having been founded in 1811. With a population above 10,000 people, it’s also the biggest town I’ve been to since heading to the coast in California. Astoria has a lot of history to it and it’s also a fun town with cool people and a lot going on. Arriving on a Sunday night, I wanted to check out the relatively new tiki bar in town, Dead Man’s Isle, as I am a huge fan of tiki bars and this one was definitely on my list. It was a good one too, with enough flair to transport you to the South Pacific without being too much like a Disney ride. They had invested a lot in decorative glassware which you don’t see too often anymore and the bartender, Charles, did a great job of whipping up some tiki classics and their own house concoctions as well. I had a lovely evening there and it was a perfect end to a solid long weekend.
A Cool Astoria Scene
Over the last couple of days, I’ve been keeping busy. I’ve explored the local history center and the Flavel Mansion which is a beautifully restored old Victorian house built by one of Astoria’s early prominent citizens. I hiked up to the Astoria Column, a major landmark high above the town – although it was quite foggy when I was there so there wasn’t much to see. I wandered through old neighborhoods and visited many of the filming locations from the movie The Goonies which is an absolute classic. Astoria embraces The Goonies and definitely promotes it as much as they can and 40 years after the film came out, it’s still drawing people in. There are also a couple of nice breweries and some fun little dive bars as well. It was so nice to be in a town with lots to do and one that I could hang around for a few days and stay busy. It’s been a blast.
Alas, it’s time to leave Astoria though, but it’s a place I will definitely return to in the future. When I finish up with this post, I’m moving inland and south along the Columbia River towards Portland. I am looking forward to catching up with a few friends over the next few days, including one who I knew in Japan and haven’t seen since I left over a decade ago. I will definitely be catching the Penn State football game this weekend at the local Portland area alumni association viewing site, which I have been to before and definitely enjoyed. Beyond that, I want to visit their big history museum and hopefully their two main tiki bars as well. From there I’ll be heading up the Columbia River Gorge a short way, doing some hiking and looking for some waterfalls. I’m only going a short ways up the Gorge and then I will cross into Washington and come back down the gorge and start heading back towards the ocean again. I’m not sure where I’ll be at this point next week, but hopefully in Washington and on my way west once again. Have a great week out there and soak up summer as best you can while it lasts. This time next week it will be September. Thank you, as always, for reading.
-Mike
