RETIREMENT TRIP #7

Becoming Beach Bums
                                                                       We caught the early morning sun at Canon Beach. “I wanted to get pictures of the Haystacks with the sun on them,” said Andy, weaving along narrow, one-way, residential streets to the beach.  It was a pre-breakfast trek across sand dunes, past beautiful homes, out to views of Chapman Point and Bird Rocks.  Since it was a residential area, we couldn’t get closer, but the view was amazing.


From the Ecola State Park entrance
we peek through the trees to see
The Haystacks in the distance.

Then Andy tried a different perspective by driving inland uphill to the pay station at Ecola State Park.  Through the trees just before the entrance to the park, we spotted Haystack, not quite as far away.

With the tide coming in The Haystacks are inaccessible, but
at low tide visitors walk out to the bird sanctuary.

After breakfast he found residential Laurel Street with closer views of Haystack and some great shots of the lighthouse a couple miles out beyond Chapman Point and the Bird Rocks.

From the beach we spot the lonely
lighthouse off of Chapman Point.

Another stop off of Hemlock provided close-ups of Haystack right in town at Tolovana Beach.  We parked on the main road and found a public path down to the water.

High tide at Tolovana Beach is a
perfect retreat in early September.

From the beach we could see birds swooping to the ledges of the monolith.  This was the nesting site of puffins.  It was high tide, or we could have walked across to explore the tide pools.  I thought of John Steinbeck and the tide pools of Cannery Row.


Waves crash below us at Arcadia Beach Viewpoint.

At Arcadia Beach Viewpoint we zoomed in on one of the nesting rocks.  Every direction offered breathtaking pictures of roaring ocean and majestic coastline.A cloud of mist lingered as we drove to Hug Point.  There the sun filtered through lush Oregon vegetation right along the beach.  The Hug Point turnout provided another beautiful beach access point.  We walked along the sand and even captured on film a seagull pruning on a rock offshore.
Another turnout off of Route #101 gave us a view of Oswald West State Park and the town of Garibaldi in one direction and the coastline vegetation in the other.

Convenient pieces of driftwood provide balancing points
for the camera, set on timer mode, at Manhattan Beach.

Manhattan Beach Wayside and State Recreation Site has picnic sites and beach access.  We had the whole place to ourselves.  “In the summer all 100 parking spots are probably filled by this time of day,” said Andy.  No doubt he was right.
At Barview Bay County Park we walked along the railroad tracks for views of nesting seagulls and black oyster catchers.
In Tillamook we followed the turn to Cape Meares, one of the most scenic spots of the Coast.  Route #131, Three Capes Scenic Route, took us along the water to Netart’s Oceanside Cape Lookout Park.

From the railroad track at Barview Bay County Park
we watch the gulls and black oyster catchers sun themselves.

Only a maximum of ten tourists toured the Cape Meares Lighthouse at one time.  There were seven in our group after the tour bus departed.  Volunteer Guide Bob escorted us up to the mid-platform and gave us a fifteen-minute information-packed story about the Cape Meares Light.  It was 104 degrees at the top.
The shortest lighthouse on the Oregon Coast, the tower stands only 38 feet tall and is 217 feet above the water.  First illuminated in 1890, after Congress had approved the $60,000 construction cost, Cape Meares was decommissioned in 1963.

Inside the mid-level, Volunteer Guide Bob
briefs us with interesting facts
about the Cape Meares Lighthouse.

Guide Bob explained that Cape Meares contains four first-order Fresnel lenses that were stolen but anonymously returned after 1963.
At Christmas some years ago two hunters broke in and shot the glass windows and prisms.  Already the cost of limited repairs has exceeded $150,000.  The hunters were caught, fined $100,000 and given two-week sentences at Christmas for three years.  But many damaged parts have so far been irreplaceable. 

Cape Meares Lighthouse
has the shortest tower on the Oregon coast.

Guide Bob also said life here as one of the three keepers would have been boring, with trips to town for provisions over a mud-packed road only once every three weeks.
Duties included washing windows outside that would get coated with seaweed foam, coping with winds that sometimes exceeded 100 m.p.h. and keeping the five-inch wicks burning before electricity was installed in 1934.

Cormorants line the rocky shore at the base of the lighthouse.

A clock on a pulley system kept the light turning—30 seconds of white light and 5 seconds of red light—but it had to be reset every 2.5 hours.  Ship captains could identify location from the timing of the pattern from 24 miles out to sea.  After that the curvature of the earth sent the beam over their heads.


As much as 300 years old,
the Octopus Tree has no central trunk.

We walked the .1-mile trail to The Octopus Tree, a Sitka spruce with no central trunk, which was named for its unique shape.Three Capes Scenic Route skirted the coastline for views of the beaches and ocean.
Munson Creek Falls in the Munson Creek State Natural Site is the highest waterfall in the Coastal Range at 319 feet.  A salmon spawning area in the fall and winter, the waterfall is best viewed in early spring when water flow is at maximum.  We hiked in the quarter-mile uphill path past 250-foot Sitka spruce trees to a huge fallen tree dam.

At two points the Munson
Creek Falls are blocked
by natural debris.

We could see another debris pile at the mid-point of the falls.  I wondered out loud what would happen when either pile gave way.  Andy assured me that the surrounding trees were so large, they probably wouldn’t be affected and no one lived nearby.  “It’s a beautiful waterfall, considering it’s only dribbling at this time of year,” said Andy.
A quick stop at the Tillamook Cheese factory provided appetizers before dinner.  We sampled cheese curds, mild cheddar, white cheddar, Swiss, pepper Jack and roasted black pepper cheeses more than once.  Andy chose to forego the ice cream.  It was almost time for dinner!