Highway 101: Oregon Coast

We drove over the towering ribbon of a bridge that links Washington and Oregon at the mouth of the Columbia river. After a brief stop to refuel at one of the old cannaries on the Astoria waterfront, we continued along 101 down the coast. 

Our first stop was the "Goonies" rock above Cannon Beach, Ecola State Park. We hiked up to the head, where there was some significant sluffing that had closed the main path. Time and weather have nearly created another sea stack! Some brave (or foolish) human tied some nasty 3-strand over a bluff, like they'd lowered themselves to the little cove below. We chose not to go down it.

Watching a storm blow over to the South

At the beach, we encountered a "Blue Tide." Thousands of jelly creatures (velella velella) were washed up on the beach. they are a little like squishy, oblong sand dollars. There were so many of them! They were slippery along the tide line on the rocks.

We loaded up on salt water taffy at Cannon Beach, and went down to Manzanita to pitch our tent. It was a stormy night, but it turned out that if we put the seats all the way forward we could fit our sleeping bags in the back. Maybe in the future we'll opt for one of these, or even a car-top fold out tent! Although the reviews say they leak, so it wouldn't have been a good choice for our rain forest road trip...