Summertime on the Oregon coast

As this year is coming to an end, I’m thinking about all the things that has happened this past year and doing my best to catch up on them as a recap as much as sharing some of the photos I’ve been taking.

In late June, Rebecca and I took off for the Oregon coast for almost a week as an effort to get out of the city and recollect ourselves. 2011 has been a roller coaster of sorts, so we needed to spend some time listening and watching to the ocean in front of a fireplace from the comfort of cozy, seaside refuge in Cannon Beach.

It was such a charm to be in a smaller town that had feeling like being in B.C. but new to my list of states yet to cross off my list of places to visit.

Haystack Rock is the icon of this area, and we stared out at this natural rock formation from our room that the ocean seemed to place replicas of every so often along the coast.

In the last remaining hours of our stay, we were walking around the beach when I spotted a bald eagle heading straight towards the Haystack, where many puffins make their nests. Making a straight line for the rock, I stopped us both to watch what happened next.

As the eagle approached, a swarm of birds arrose from the Haystack, circled around the eagle, followed as it swung out and then back around towards its top, only to dive straight down to its surface. At that moment, the swarm collapsed on the same spot the eagle had just swooped into. The circle of life was in full effect as the nest were raided.

The one thing that I’ve always known and interested me about Cannon Beach is that this is the location where the Fratellis had their hideout in The Goonies. While that shack was built just for filming at Ecola State Park, we still had to explore it so I could say I’d been where Chunk had once tread.

I smell ice cream…

And while we did explore the town of Cannon Beach itself, it was tough to bring my camera along for the simple fact of not having a DSLR attached to my hip. This was a vacation after all.

But there were a few things I fell in love with other than just the piece of Oregon coastline that we called home for a few days.

One thing I’ve been told is how good Oregon beers are, and Bill’s Tavern and Brewhouse in Cannon Beach did not disappoint, especially after getting a little warm from the sun popping out from the clouds during yet another walk along the beach. The list of brews were all enticing, so I asked if they had a sampler that I could try.

The guy taking our order replied to my question, “You wanna try my beers?”

Yes I do, and I think I had just met either Bill himself or the brewmaster. Either way, it was tough to find a favorite as it’s a location pinned as must-go-back-to.

Other things of note: there is no sales tax in Oregon, it’s state law that you cannot pump your own gas, I love getting breakfast at the Pig ‘N Pancake if deciding to pass up the numerous cafes or bakeries, there is no better place than Cannon Beach to have a flip flop replacement emergency, and bird watching is serious business in these parts.

And speaking of serious business, so is cheese.

It might not sound like a good time, but the Tillamook Cheese Factory is an experience I won’t soon forget. It was a tad on the insane side in terms of the amount of people with their families to get samples of all things dairy, especially the double scoop ice cream cones and all the cheese curds you can eat until some one from behind shoves you out of line (I’m not saying that because people were rude as much as saying that the curds were tasty enough to get a little violent over the free samples).

In the end, simply driving around the coast is what really made our trip.

When we pulled off to take this photo, a family with thick, southern accents were at the same lookout, telling us that they didn’t have anything close to this beautiful back home. And while we have some pretty amazing scenery in B.C., it doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate other parts of the world that are just as awesome.