August 18, 2008 - Northern Oregon Beaches

Note: Photos for this day have not been posted yet.

Today I finally left the Ocean Shores hotel. I decided to try Oregon's northern Pacific beaches. The weather forecast called for rain. I expected the fog would be present along these beaches as well. This would basically be the beginning of my long and slow trip home. From this point on, I would try to go towards the east in order to get home.

State Count
Oregon is my 44th state and possibly the final new state for me on this trip. There are only six states left in the United States that I have not yet visited: Alaska, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Texas.

Dismal Nitch
It was a long drive around Grays Harbor to get to the Oregon border. I got to a rest stop area and didn't realize how close I was to the state line. The rest stop has an interesting name: Dismal Nitch. It was in an area that would have provided great photographic opportunities if it were not for the fog.


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State Line on the Bridge
There is a rather long bridge shortly after the Dismal Nitch rest stop. Near the middle of the bridge is a sign saying "Entering Oregon." There is no "Welcome to Oregon" with some interesting slogan (e.g. "Kentucky, birthplace of Abraham Lincoln" or "West Virginia, wild, wooly, and wonderful" or "South Dakota, great faces, great places"). I realize this is not an interstate, but still, I've seen other states with at least a small welcome sign on non-interstate roads.

Seaside, OR
I had originally set the GPS to get me to Cannon Beach which I had read about online. It is alleged to have great tide pools. But, I passed through Seaside first. With a name like that, I knew there had to be a beach. Of course, the GPS went ballistic: "Recalculating....recalulating...turn right!"

Seaside was interesting. They had an aquarium where you could personally feed seals. I didn't go in because I just didn't have the time. The beach had fog but much less than what I saw in Washington. You could see more than ten feet away. Further south, cliffs ran along the beach with some homes at the top. The fog made them difficult to see.

Cannon Beach, OR
After Seaside, I decided to visit the main attraction: Cannon Beach. This is a resort town with lots of shops and expensive restaurants. There were wire statues of Lewis and Clark plus a Native American. It just started to rain so I only got one photo.

I found a place to park and head to the beach. Foolishly, I did not bother to remember the buildings or the business names in the area where I parked my car. I did notice a whale statue near the entrance to the beach but forgot about it until later.

In order to actually get to the ocean, you had to cross a "river" which flowed into the ocean. From where I entered, there were lots of plants growing in the "river" and it seemed to be about four feet deep in the middle. I didn't cross at that point. As I walked along further, it thinned out and became shallow. It was only ankle high as it got closer to the ocean.

Cannon Beach was definitely the best ocean beach I saw on the trip. It had huge rocks on either side which were a ways out in the ocean. At one point there was an "island." To get there, you had to cross very shallow water. In other parts, the water was consistently very shallow. You had to go way out to get to deeper water. Even that wasn't very deep for a long time. Waves were very gentle. However, the water was C-O-L-D. I was chilled to the bone walking through the water. Other people waded but absolutely nobody swam in the water.

After exploring the beach for quite a while and I began to realize this would be my last visit to the Pacific Ocean on this trip. It could be the last visit to the Pacific Ocean in my life with the cost of gas.

I began to work my way back to the area where I entered the beach. Unfortunately, nothing looked familiar. I finally went up to the town area and found that I didn't see anything I remembered. I walked around quite a bit looking for anything familiar. At one point I saw a guy going in a truck marked "Beach rescue." I was going to ask for help in figuring out where I needed to go but then realized I couldn't tell him anything about the area where I parked the car. He couldn't help me because I couldn't provide him with any information.

I went back to the beach. The sand made it very difficult to walk around. I looked around quite a bit and finally found saw the whale statue. I suddenly remembered it.

I thought about having dinner in one of the restaurants in Cannon Beach. The first one I visited required reservations. I walked around some more and found a store that sells postcards. Of course, I got a bunch of postcards. I decided that I was no longer interested in wasting time at a restaurant. I went to a pizza place for fast service.

The clerk at the pizza place was telling another customer that summer was basically over for this area. They were entering the cold season. If only I had gotten to this area a week earlier!

Drive to Vancouver, WA
I had a reservation to stay at a hotel in Vancouver, WA. This is just outside of Portland. The deciding factor in getting this hotel was that it took a reasonable amount of points for a freebie night. After all the points I've accumulated due to Choice Hotels' promotion that ran until August 14th, I wanted to start getting some free nights.


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The trees in this stretch of Oregon looked just like our trees except that they are much taller. As it was getting dark, I didn't get to see much along the way.