Parents-Only Vacation: Day 2, Cannon Beach, Oregon

Ahh. Life after vacation is slowly resuming its normalcy, though its a relative type of normal. But you don't really care, do you? You came back for more vacation pictures. And so you shall have.

We spent the night in Hood River, near Mount Hood, as described in the last post. I had the best night's sleep ever! That waterfall did the trick to lull me to sleep, which is a feat considering the snoring from Keith with which the waterfall was competing. He was sick, he said, over and over. Odd that the snoring when he's sick and not sick doesn't differ much, but being in my post-waterfall daze,  I just let the comment slide. 

Our plans were to hike up to Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood. It's the really cool lodge that was used to film the exterior scenes for The Shining. Yes, Estes Park in Colorado was used too, but most of the outside shots are at Timberline. It's a moderate hike of a few miles and we thought it would be good to get the blood flowing. We thought that until we got to Hood River the day before and heard that there was still a lot of snow at Mount Hood, in fact skiers and snowboarders were stoked to have this extended winter sport season. I'm not of the winter sport variety, so we opted to skip the hiking, and head to the coast instead. In retrospect, snowshoeing would have been cool, but we didn't have the correct gear.

Into the car we went. Later, Hood River! Neat town, but very windy.

We had about a 2 hour drive ahead of us, which is not too bad. Here is where we were headed. 

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More gorgeous scenery along the way. To our right, river and trees. 

To our left, waterfalls scattered about the cliffs. See the one?

We passed through Portland, hit a little west suburb traffic, and hit a portion of the Cascade mountains. First just lots of trees and clearish skies.

And later hills, up and down, and pea-soup fog. Peaceful and calm.

And then, when the one radio station we could hear clearly was playing this song for the 4th time, no lie, well, maybe a little exaggerated, whatever, we saw the sign, 4 more miles!

And then, there she was! The Pacific, that beautiful thing. Of all the oceans, I love her the most. Indian Ocean is close second. I may have squealed when we saw her.

Naturally we headed right for a parking lot so we could run right out onto the beach to snap pictures, as if we've never seen the ocean before.

And we also took more pictures of seagulls than I know what to do with.

And to our far left, was Haystack Rock. If you're seen the movie Goonies, you know this monolith. Turned out that on this particular day it was a supertide, and the area around the big rock that is normally underwater was exposed, so we headed that way on a little walk.

Saw proper sand dollars.

And a seagull eating a starfish.

We got closer and closer.

And then I officially went to heaven. The abundance of sea life exposed due to the extreme tide made for a very happy Trudi, and we spent at least 30 minutes just staring and exploring and bending down to see closer. Those big starfish are sunflower starfish, the green things are anemones. We originally thought maybe sea cucumber, but we were wrong.

It's a living shell sculpture!

And, naturally there was a seagull staring at us the entire time.

What I really loved about Haystack Rock was that there was an awareness group that had volunteer teachers standing around, answering questions and telling people about more about the rock, the wildlife, the beach. They had a large pickup truck with educational signs all over it. The dork in me was sooooo happy. Here is one of the signs.

I can't describe the feeling of calm and wonder I felt standing here staring at the shell and barnacle formations. It really is a chance to see into a world normally hidden out of sight. Amazing.

More coolness, in bright colors.

We absorbed as much as we could, and started our walk back to our hotel. Instead of walking back on the beach, we cut up to the road and walked through a residential area of Cannon Beach. The town was picturesque, small cottagey homes with gray shingles, and loads of white trim. I almost expected 7 dwarfes to come marching by, or for cartoon birds and mice to make Cinderella a dress. The gardens were well-maintained, the houses, cute, and every block had a street like this that looked down towards the Pacific Ocean. It must be like living in very expensive heaven.

A little more walking, and we were back to our car, but it was still not time to check in. Being the planner I am, I had back-up plans. About 30 minutes south of Cannon Beach, is Tillamook, Oregon.You know what Tillamook is known for? Keith's favorite food item: cheese.

Oh. You thought beer? That's a beverage, not food item.

So we went to visit the large allegedly well-known cheese factory. We expected to learn something new at this place, but we didn't exactly expect it to be such a ....uhhh....cultural experience. This sign should say: Visitors Entrace: Teeth and Waistlines optional.

At this point Keith and I had a disagreement. He wanted to go learn stuff about cheese. I wanted to go eat cheese. I never thought I'd have to talk Keith into eating cheese, but I did. And I failed. We went to go read big boring signs about the cheesemaking process and stare down into these big windows while people were doing their jobs. I"m sure it is interesting, but I could not hear the reading-to-myself-in-my-head over the rumbling of my stomach.

We stopped by during an especially busy time of the day, as you can see the guys below demonstrating. This particular part of cheesemaking is the very important cross your arms and stare at the people staring at you process.

We moved past about 7 windows when we got to this one with 40lb blocks of cheese when suddenly Keith said that seeing the cheese made him hungry. Finally! I don't remember anything from him saying that...

...until we got to the little cafeteria downstairs and eyed the grilled cheese menu. We both went with the CheeseWorks, if you're wondering. Melty goodness.

After the sammich, we took a small breath and headed to a counter. Not the grilled cheese one, but the ice cream counter. Hmmm. So, before you look at this picture and think that I'm a complete glutton, let me explain something. On our way to the ice cream counter a cute little girl walked by with small cone with 2 scoops on it. It looked small, and very manageable. A perfect dessert size. So I order a 2 scoop cone, but instead of being handed something small, I get this. And at first, I though, OOOOH, I can't eat all this! But I did. OOOOH. I did!

It took us a decent while to finish our cones, undo our pant buttons and waddle back to the car for the drive back to Cannon Beach. For now we've seen the ocean, we walked along it, we've had cheese and ice cream, and now it's time to nap.

On the drive down to Tillamook we passed a spectacular overlook pull-off, but we were driving too fast to stop. We made a mental note to stop on the way back and I'm so glad we did. It was worth it.

There were also a few random pull-offs with access to beached. One more thing we love about the northern pacific coast is that there are little crescent shaped beaches tucked in between large cliffs. We needed walk off a little of that ice cream, and at one of the beach pull-offs, we headed down the trail. This particular trail had a little swinging hang bridge to cross before you get the beach. I'm all for adventure, but let's just say that walking across a bridge like this with a thunderfooted person who weight significantly more than you do is not fun.

The beach we found on the other side of the bridge and puddles of mud was pretty. And had logs laying about. Pebbles, logs, rocks, trees, so much texture.

So, I'm busy admiring nature and enjoying the quiet shoosh-shoosh of waves crashing onto the shore. I turn around, and Keith is walking to this tree yelling Imma climb that thing! From time to time the root of boys' behavior shows, and this was one of those times. Boys. They're just born wanting to climb stuff. He climbed it, I took a picture. It's what we do.

And then remembered that nap we wanted. We finally got back to Cannon Beach, checked in and headed the room. Which, again, was nice but nothing special.

Until you look out of the window and the ocean is RIGHT THERE! Just right there. And the seagull. This little buddy stayed with us almost the entire visit at this hotel. I'm assuming it was the same one, he came back each time, sat right there and peered into the room.

Not much else happened for us this particular evening, except a gorgeous sunset.

My point of view. 

Keith's point of view.

Thats it for this day.

Parents Only Vacation: Day 1: Columbia Gorge, Oregon

Our first full day of vacation started with a stop here to enjoy my favorite meal, breakfast! I saw this place on another food blog (can't fine the link, though), and we walked after stirring and getting ourselves presentable. Portland is a really easy city to walk in, as are most cities out west. It's all east/west and north/south grid aligned and it's not a big city by any means. Took us maybe 15 minutes to walk here.

The diner was cute. The name suggests the inside theme-highways and byways. It was a little 1950's-60's ish with loads of trinkets and souvenirs from different cities. Nana and Oupa collect magnets from the different places they visit and these magnets live on their fridge. If that fridge and a breakfast restaurant had a baby, this cafe would be it. As we sat and waited for our food, I look around at the fun memorabilia, and Keith took unflattering pictures of me. See the wooden cases to my left? Those were all filled with very trinkets.

Before we knew it, our food was ready. Deeeelicious. Portland does food right.The following two pictures are for my parents, who love taking pictures of their food during travels. Keith had amaretto creme french toast.

I had blue corn pancakes. SO. GOOD.

We ate until we could eat no longer and longingly stared at the leftovers on our plate wishing we could eat more. But the stomach is only so big, you know, so we paid and set off on foot to get our rental car. We passed through parks and down quiet streets. It felt to me like half of Portland was still asleep, or away on vacation, it was so quiet.

At the rental car place some lady annoyed me but I got over that quickly when we got our car and headed east, towards Mount Hood, a town an hour's drive down the Columbia River.

After just a few minutes of driving, our view turned from this...

Into this. Ahhhh. Green and peaceful. As you can see, we took a left onto Graham Rd, and we were taking the Oregon Scenic Byway. Why not? The alternative is a busy interstate, and where's the romance in that?

Pretty sure the highway did not have cool old bridges.

The round led us up and up and through forest groves, until we got to a clearing, high above the river. It was misty and gray, just as I imagined the northwest to be.

We parked at the Vista Crown Point and checked out the building. The Scenic Highway and this building were built in the 1920's for people to enjoy as a day-trip out of the city, and its amazing to think of all the work it must have taken to built this almost a hundred years ago.

We explored inside the dome and went downstairs to a small exhibit area, and by the time we got outside to take a picture, the sun was out. Oh, Oregon, how quickly we learned the fickleness of your weather.

We decided we had enough of that, and got back in the car. So the big deal about this scenic byway is that are 77 waterfalls along the stretch. Some are small little trickles of water, but others are big. And beautiful. We stopped at all of them. Here's #1.

Same waterfall, different angle. Someone was busy playing with camera settings.

Same waterfall, different person in the front. Different angle.

Most of the waterfalls were right along the scenic byways's 2 lane road and there are little parking lots that you can pull into, walk a few steps and voila! you're at the waterfall. Except for Bridal Veil Falls. It requires a half mile walk. With breakfast lingering in the stomach, we thought it would be good to get moving. On the walk to the falls, there was a really pretty stream.

And just in case you're the type to get lost, the Oregon Park Service has your back.

And there she is, she's a double decker falls. There's a more technical term than that, but its close enough.

She falls twice, and after she hits the ground, she turns  into this pretty stream that runs towards the interstate (which runs parralel to the scenic byway). Am I confusing you? I'll show a map later.

We spied another lady who had a camera very similar to ours, and she agreed to take our picture.

 At this point, we're still driving east along the Columbia River, so this was the view to our left. All the waterfalls were to our right. Not much wrong with these views.

On the other side of the river is Washington State, if you're wondering.

The next stop was the most famous of all the falls, and in that parking lot we saw a license plate that made us think of Oupa. This is for you, old man.

Back to the waterfalls. The park service is really good about posting info for those of us who like pretty stuff+learning. We read about Multnomah Falls, which is the second tallest waterfall in the US. Yosemite has the tallest).

She is beautiful, and also a double decker. Back in the 1920's, a rich timber industry man built that bridge, called Bennett Bridge, after him. Cars used to drive across that. Hmmm. Seems a little crazy, but what do I know.

While we talked about the tallness of the waterfalls, we talked about how  Ansel Adams took pictures in Yosemite, likely of the tallest waterfall, and I guess Keith got inspired by that because this was the next picture he took. Sorry for all the orbs, the sun was in a bad spot. 

You might not be able to see them in the picture above, but people can walk up to the bridge. I stayed in the main viewing area and told Keith to scurry up there. There he goes, the little spec of red vested person is him on the trail.

He made it up there pretty quickly.

And zooming back out...he's still standing there. Pretty amazing sight, this waterfall.

Next along the scenic byway was the Bonneville Dam. It was...eh...ok. I mean, it's a dam, you know? Nothing poetic or natural about it. This particular dam has historic significance, and if you're into that, you're welcome to read about it here. We did drive onto the island it sits on, and we went to the visitor center to learn a little more. A little.

Right next to the dam was a fish hatchery. There are way more of these things than I ever knew. This was, appropriately enough, called the Bonneville Fish Hatchery. They do trout and sturgeon. A view of part of the grounds.

The egg incubators, sort of.

Rainbow trout, just hanging out.

And before we left, we went to see the sturgeon. I'm not sure what I expected sturgeon to look like.

But holy sh*t, these are big and so prehistoric. 7 feet long!

There were also some other fish, salmon, I believe, in the tank and I had a good time with them.

Now, let's back it up a little. When we stopped at the Crown Vista Point the lady at the front desk said that we should cross over to the Washington side at the Bridge of the Gods so we could go through some tunnels for the next 14 miles, then cross back over to Oregon. So we did. Here we are, paying our toll and crossing to Washington.

And just to be sure we got it right, I consulted the map she gave us.

And then we drove. And drove. And wondered if that lady was just helping to get more tolls paid because there for sure have not been any tunnels on this side. Don't get me wrong, it was a pretty drive, but it's now early afternoon and I'm ready to get out of the car. 

Then finally, a tunnel! Short, but it counts. 

And shortly after, another!

But that was it for tunnels, then it was back to the regular pretty view.

A few miles later, we arrived to Mount Hood, and had lunch here.

They make beer. Guess who was really excited to be here?

This was our view from our table. Small town, pretty mellow. In the summer it gets busy with kite surfers and other watersport loving people.

I'm running out of town, so here is a short run-down of what else we did this day.We went here.

Saw this sweet dog, SnowBear.

Had a glass of wine after petting SnowBear.

Oh, the "here" was this place. Goooood wine, nice people. They also grow winter pears, and Mount Hood is the #1 producer world-wide of said pears. We love random useless facts.

Next we checked into our hotel, a remnant from the 1920's, build for those people exploring the scenic byways.

It's a historic landmark, and is currently getting a little facelift. It's been pampered some, but could use a little more. 

Our room was nice enough, though. Nothing spectacular.

The view out was nice, too. There's the river.

Oh! But then I looked down and realize there was a waterfall right below our window! HEAVEN. Yes, we definitely slept with the windows a little open. Best whitenoise machine ever.

The hallways were a little creepy. Reminded me of The Shining.

But the grounds were gorgeous. We fully intended to take a nap, just 'cause we could, but went exploring first. Here is a view of the waterfall below our window.

And another handsome view, the other way. I told Keith to stand like he was a timber baron in the 20's, and this is what he came up with.

More opportunities to get our learn on.

And that's it. We napped, had a really nice anniversary meal at the hotel's restaurant, and fell asleep to the sound of the water falling over the rocks. Heaven.