Sunday morning we got on our way by 11:00 and excited to be actually seeing new parts of Oregon. The last 2 weeks we had followed our same route as last summer but this time we were staying on 101 North and getting to see the northern coast of Oregon, new for us both! The drive from Lincoln City to Tillamook was a meandering road through beautiful valleys of dairy farms and corn fields.
We stayed at the Tillamook Elks Park just 4 miles south of town. It has about 20 sites and is nestled in between a dairy and the woods, very peaceful and quiet.
I had some laundry that needed doing so we loaded the car and went to find the closest laundromat. Town was closed up tight...but we did find a coin laundry right on the main road. Once things were washing we had time to take a walk around the streets to see a bit of the town. It looked pretty dismal, clouds were overhead and almost all shops were closed. But, we did start noticing these colorful squares on buildings. We'd seen a couple on our way into town and learned that they were all part of a city wide Quilt Trail begun in 2010 to draw tourists to the area. As we walked around the streets we saw several:
This one on City Hall
Another on a Law Office
and a local business
even one on the Salvation Army building. But by then the clothes were dry and we were ready to see some of the coast.
Driving west of town on 3rd Street we turned onto Bay Ocean Road to find the Cape Meares Lighthouse. Along the road we saw another quilt square on The Cape House, it was the most unique of all we'd seen.
After a lovely half hour along the bay we climbed the coast for amazing views.
This art work greeted us at the entrance to the lighthouse. It was a long walk in a forested grove before we came to
Oregon's shortest lighthouse built in 1890, decommissioned in 1963. It stands only 38 feet tall but did the work of signaling mariners traveling along Oregon's northern coastline for many years.
A short walk took us to another interesting formation in the park, the Octopus Tree, a most unusual Sitka Spruce.
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Beautiful weathered tree trunks were everywhere.
From this vantage point we could see down the coast to Cape Lookout
We continued on the Bay Ocean Road winding through the forests and flowered hillsides.
I was doing the driving and we almost missed a wonderful evening in the tiny town of Oceanside when I took a wrong turn. But we found a pull out in the road and swung back and were so happy we did! It was after 6:00 and we were getting hungry, with one restaurant in town it wasn't hard to choose between it an the coffee house across the street. A darling small eatery called Roseanne's. Fantastic food, and amazing views overlooking the beach. The best was the marionberry pie for dessert!
After dinner a walk down to the beach of course. The clouds were slowly disappearing and the sun was breaking out as we looked out at Three Arches. We even had a few sprinkles before getting an awesome sunset!
We've been seeing lots of signs about the tsunami debris but this was an interesting one at the entry to the beach.
The beaches along this part of the coast are long with very few people. Lovely!
Driftwood barriers make wonderful fire pit areas.
As we walked back to the car the colors became spectacular!
A short drive home got us back to our campsite and our comfy little house.
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1 comment:
Oh Julie, what wonder photo's!!!! Don't you just love that short lighthouse? My brother lives in Tillamook. He works at the Ford Dealership and pumps gas. I would love to be walking on some of those beaches. God bless the three of you.....Enjoying your blog.
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