Hit the beach!
The first white person here is believed to be William Clark — who did not lose a bet to Meriwether Lewis, really what happened was they Googled themselves, found a small accounting firm in the northeast named Clark and Lewis LLP and decided on their own brand. He and his team crossed what they texted back to Jefferson as “OMG, Worst. Mountain. EVAR.” before seeing the ocean and finding natives processing a beached whale.
Clark did not use AT&T, who’s coverage is somewhere down in the Five Bars and Lousy range in this region.
So they traded with the locals for whale oil and blubber, turned around and noticed there were suddenly condos everywhere. Such is beach life.
Cannon Beach was originally named Ecola, which was borrowed from the local stream. Ecola, not E. coli. We ate lunch today at a place named Ecola. They have their own boat and bring in their own catch from the Pacific which, I don’t know about the depth of your experience, is the way to go.
The water is chilly. The beach isn’t dirty, but the sand is darker than I’m accustomed to seeing. There are great rock formations to enjoy at the coastline and dramatic rolling hills rushing down into the sand. This is a beautiful spot.
Later, on the advice of someone who lives in Portland, we set out for the quiet Oswald West beach. You park on one side of the road and then take a path beneath it and through these woods:
This is a stream that is escaping into the ocean at Oswald:
Some people love the ocean, others find their home in the mountains or feel natural on a plain or a steppe, but I could stay in spots like this forever:
Here’s Oswald, in panorama. Click to open in a new window and magnify:
This is a shallow cove and a favorite of the surfers. It feels primitive and unspoiled and perfect. I brought a few round stones home, thinking I’ll put them in my office, so I can remember that sun and those waves and part of an afternoon walking over driftwood.
I shot it in my free iPhone app Panorama which isn’t perfect, but is very free. This one didn’t work very well because I stood in shade and shot sun-shade-sun. Now, though, the finished product — stitched by the app — looks wonderfully dramatic.
We went south for the next town, thinking we would find dinner, but nothing inspired us. On the way, though, we found this terrific view:
You see that and begin to wonder “How spoiled are these people?”
So we came back up to Cannon Beach for dinner, found some family-owned chain where the menu said “Not much has changed since the 1950s.” And to see the dishes, you’d think Yeah, my grandmother ate this. Even the pictures of the food on the menu looked dated. How does one make lemon slices and broiled shrimp look dated? The apathy of the staff was incredible. We ate there because of the view of those giant rocks on the shoreline and because we wanted to see the sunset on the beach. Our waiter, who was a little too old and just a few hits away from a Grateful Dead concert in his head, was only too happy to hold us up, but we just did make it.
If you’re curious and you know the area, here’s your hint:
More importantly, the sunset:
Those big haystack rocks. In fact one of them is called Haystack, but I believe that one is farther up the beach:
Those are my best cell phone pics of the day. The following are some of my D-SLR photographs. There are lots of kites on Cannon Beach. Some of them will find their way into my trip video.
Wild berries in macro at Oswald Beach West:
Need a hiding place?
The Yankee enjoys the side of Oswald Beach:
There’s sand in the center, separated by a wooded estuary feeding into the ocean. The beach, which is probably less than 250 yards, is framed by woods on one side and a rock face on the other side. Whomever donated or sold this land to the state did not understand what they could have done with this real estate, but generations are lucky they did share it.
Walking Cannon Beach at sunset:
The Yankee wraps up her day in style:
Tomorrow we go back to work.
