Oregon Coast

After a little convincing the guys decided to continue on with us to the coast. We hit up Astoria first. It’s a quiet town, filled with movie history. Goonies was filmed there as was kindergarten cop. Walking up to see the goonies’ house, we could hear the sea lions barking up a storm down below.

Maggie had given me a list of things not to miss in Oregon and Canon Beach was first on her list. Goonies was also filmed there (it’s where they come out of the cave) and it’s stunningly beautiful. Long big beach with rocks and boulders emerging from the sea. The clouds were streaming across the sky as we walked part of the length of the beach, dipping our feet into the cold water (which we later learned was filled with dangerous bacteria. Oops.) It was a good introduction to Oregon beaches. They are pretty incredible. We camped that night at a site by the ocean. It was freezing cold but worth it to watch the sun set behind the water. Someone had built a driftwood hut on the beach so we all huddled in that. Hotdogs and corn and potatoes for dinner.

The boys left us the next day and Darcy and I continued down the coast, stopping by the beach to eat our lunch and then at the Yaquima lighthouse to get a tour. We climbed up a hill with gorgeous views of the ocean and then up again into the lighthouse. I had never seen the inside of a lighthouse before. The stream of light is created by hundreds of pieces of glass reflecting a single source of light. The glass at this lighthouse was from the 19th century and just stunningly beautiful. Then back down the hill and to the car and we were off to the Dunes.
At one point we had considered camping at Dunes State Park but our timing was off and it was all for the better: the wind was cold and it didn’t seem appealing to have that blowing around our tent once the sun went down. So instead, we just stopped to do a hike. There is something incredibly fun about running down a sand dune (even if you fall on your face around half way down). The hike went down the dunes, through some brush and trees and over to the beach. There were only a few other people out on the hike and we had the beach to ourselves. Darcy made a sand angel and we just walked around for a bit before making out way back.

Now I’ll backtrack a bit and tell you that this was the day that we realized our camping road trip was going a bit too well. Everything was going right for us. In fact, I hesitate to even type it now because I worry I’ll somehow jinx it for the rest of my trip. Our weather was perfect, our campsites exactly what we were hoping for, it was looking like we were going to go on a hot air balloon ride (yes, you read correctly), and our friends had come out to meet us without need of convincing. Well, Darcy and I had decided that this night we were going to camp but we weren’t going to make a campfire. Instead, we’d drive until latish and then get takeout somewhere. At the beginning of the trip when we talked about doing this, Darcy had mentioned getting take out thai food. The idea had stayed with us but was seeming unlikely as we were in the middle of nowhere in small town Oregon.

After the Dunes, we drove for a while winding our way south towards a possible campsite. We still had about an hour of driving but it didn’t look like we were going to go through any other towns so this was our chance to stop for takeout. We got to the gas station to ask for suggestions and Darcy says, “hey, is there a thai restaurant around here?” The guy looks a little incredulous so I butt in with, “or any other place we can get takeout for dinner?” And next thing I know, he’s saying, “actually, we have one thai place around the corner…” I busted out laughing.
An hour later after driving through a gorgeous sunset, we entered the state park where we’d be camping. The moment we turned the corner fog just fell over everything. We were in the woods and we could see the mist descending into the trees. It was creepy enough and our day had gone so well that we were a little worried we had entered our horror movie. We couldn’t seen anything in the distance but we set up camp in a nice grove of trees. With the wind blowing and the mist descending around us, we filled the tent with blankets and watched Wedding Crashers on the laptop while chowing down on thai food. It actually turned into quite a nice night.