Today is a travel day. We are leaving Ft. Stevens SP to get to Bay City, a northern “suburb” of Tillamook, about 60 miles away. The weather is dismal, very foggy, and misty. The tow was okay, though 101 is a bit narrow and twisty. There was pretty dense fog, making it even more interesting in parts. We got to Tillamook – Bay City about 2PM. After setting up, it was off for groceries.
August 24, 2013 – Saturday
With the weather clearing up, we thought we would run the Three Capes scenic route. The first stop was in Oceanside to walk the beach at low tide. Although pretty, it did not have the tide pools and critters that Indian Beach had.
The next stop was the Cape Meares Lighthouse. This lighthouse is a bit unique for a number of reasons; first it is the shortest at 38 feet tall, but sits on a pretty high bluff so it is over 200 feet above the ocean. Second is the lens, a first order, 8 sided Fresnel lens which provided visibility out 21 miles. Finally, it alternates red and white. About 3 years ago they had a vandalism incident where a couple of local guys shot at it and did $100,000 in damage.
Finally today, we went back up to Cannon Beach at Tolovana Wayside and walked over to Haystack rock. The weather has improved all day, it is beautiful. As you can see from the picture, this is a popular beach.
August 25, 2013 – Sunday
It was quite foggy this morning but decided to complete our Three Capes tour. The second Cape was Cape Lookout, requiring a 2 ½ mile hike to get there. Since it was very soupy we passed and moved onto Cape Kiwanda. It is near Pacific City. The landscape is really different here, lots of sand and dunes. The reason we came here was to watch fisherman launch and retrieve their boats on the beach. We got here too late to watch anybody launch, but did see several retrievals. The process is pretty unique; they come in to the beach at high speed, then kill and tilt the motor at the last second. The boat slides up onto the beach a hundred feet or so. They then back the tilt trailer under the boat and winch it home.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHqUfaI1qf8&feature=youtu.be
Pretty entertaining!
After a nice walk on the beach, we headed back up to Rockaway Beach, then Garibaldi. The latter is pretty interesting with its old trains, fishing port, and logging. We bought a cool wood piece made of Myrtlewood for our wall. Myrtlewood is a very hard wood and unique to the Northwest.
Not sure on tomorrow’s agenda, as it is supposed to rain for next 24 hours.
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