Sunset in Bellingham

sunset somewhere near Bellingham, Washington

Beautiful sunset as we took the train from Portland, OR, to Vancouver, BC. Note: You’ve got to remember to say BC when you’re talking about going to the Canadian Vancouver from Portland, or everyone thinks you’re taking a little trip across the Columbia River to WA!

It’s no coincidence that the two cities have the same name. The Hudsons Bay Company abandoned their fur trading post at Fort Vancouver in what would become the American state of Washington to build a new post in what would become British Columbia at the same time Britain and the US were negotiating the Canada/US 49th-parallel border in 1846. I guess the HBC could see the writing on the wall. However, it’s interesting to consider that the US and Britain “shared” the Oregon Territory for almost 20 years, with citizens of both countries lucratively, and relatively peacefully, trapping beaver despite tenuous political relations back home.

The eight-hour train ride–which took more like nine–was very pleasant, and we saw some terrific waterfront scenery.

girl on a train

Cannon Beach

iconic Haystack Rock

Love this cute little town full of quaint shops, scrumptious restaurants, and craft breweries! I want to live here–IF I could afford it and IF they didn’t have all those dang Tsunami Escape Route notices all around. Living on the edge…of the Cascadian Subduction Zone. Check out this exciting read:  after-the-big-one

gorgeous dunes

 

windswept trees

 

my dream house

Columbia River Gorge

the. Columbia River

Took a ride with the fam up the Columbia River Gorge. Marcus and I were here just last Fall for an extended visit, but I never get tired of some of the most beautiful scenery on Earth.

Multnomah Falls

Escape to McMenamin’s

Took a bit of time out to escape across the Cornelius Pass to Hillsboro. Destination: the Cornelius Pass Roadhouse, one of some 50+ McMenamin’s brewpubs/resorts in the Pacific Northwest. We had visited their Edgefield location, east of Portland, to see Bonnie Raitt in concert last September, and wanted to check out some other ones. Their MO is to turn old, interesting properties into casual eating and drinking establishments. Edgefield was once a 77-acre poor farm in the days before welfare. It now offers a hotel, a brewery, a distillery, several restaurants and pubs, and a great music venue. Cornelius Pass Roadhouse was a six-acre farmstead. McMenamin’s still maintains the apple orchard, has a music venue in their meadow, and hosts special events in the octagonal barn. Today we enjoyed the outdoor patio of their restaurant on a perfect Oregon summer day.

the restaurant

the brewery

Family reunion @ PDX

the house

Just spent a wonderful week with my four sisters and brother and their spouses, two nieces, a nephew and his wife, a great-nephew, and my son and his wife. We rented a beautiful house outside of Portland, Oregon, and had this gorgeous view of three of the Cascades. Great times!

View from the deck. Three Cascades: Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Adams (off to the right). The Columbia River is in the foreground.

me and my sibs

Cape Perpetua

 

I didn’t know exactly what Cape Perpetua had to offer, but I was drawn by the name and the fact that it is a designated “scenic area.” In Oregon they take their scenics seriously. They have a lot to choose from. Only the best are granted the title.

No one seems to be willing to officially declare how the Cape got its name, but they will tell you that Captain James Cook was the first to reference it by that name in his ship’s log on March 7, 1778, St. Perpetua’s Day. That sounds pretty conclusive to me.

The Cape offered much more than I expected. The headland itself, the highest point on the Oregon coast at 803 feet above sea level, offers unique views of the coast afforded only by altitude. Wow!

And then we ambled across the highway to take a look at something called Devils Churn, a US Forest Service property that hadn’t even registered as a blip on my scenery radar. Wow, again! This skinny little inlet that the ocean eroded into the coastal basalt wreaks havoc with the waves. I could watch them all day, entering the inlet and colliding with previous waves that are retreating after slamming against the back wall of the inlet. When the tide is high, or the frequency and period of the waves are such that they collide with excessive force, water can project well into the air. All along this stretch of coast signs warn of “sneaker waves.” Steps allow you access to the water’s edge, but proceed at your own risk!

Here’s a video that Marcus made of Devils Churn. It’s low tide, but you get the idea.

https://youtu.be/zxR5jAnhBM4

There’s a nifty little coastal hike through the windswept Siuslaw Forest to Thor’s Well and Spouting Horn. Both are rocks undermined by the ocean to create little caverns. Eventually the ceiling of the cavern erodes so thin it caves in, which is how Devils Churn began. Spouting Horn is off of an inlet, rather than directly on the ocean, so it takes a pretty big wave at high tide to blow a spout through its hole. It was almost low tide when we were there, so we didn’t see any spouts, but we did hear a phenomenal thunderclap, like a huge bass drum, as the surf filled the cavern each time.

Thor’s Well (the name alone is intriguing) sits right on the edge of the ocean and has a wider aperture in the ceiling of its cavern, around 15 feet in diameter. You can walk out onto the rock and peer into it, if you dare. When a large wave comes in, it fills the well from below and flows up over the rim. The water pools on the rock around the well, and then drains back into the hole so rapidly when the surf retreats that it creates the effect of being sucked down into a very deep shaft. Magnificent!

Lots of sunshine and fascinating wildlife here today. Outstanding hike!

Yaquina Head Light

Yaquina Head Light

Yaquina Head Light

Pretty little Yaquina Head lighthouse at the mouth of the Yaquina River in Newport. Not to be confused with Yaquina Bay Light on the other side of Yaquina Bay. Lots of lights in this neck of the woods. Lots of rocks.

perspective

perspective

 

Newport across the bay

Newport across the bay

 

bird haven

bird haven

 

Fred and Fred

Fred and Fred

 

Pacific City

Cape Kiwanda

Cape Kiwanda

Love this little beach town. If I were to move to Oregon, this is where I’d live. (No danger of that happening; the unpredictable threat of earthquakes and tsunamis is much scarier than the predictable threat of hurricanes. You have to prioritize your natural disasters.)

Cape Kiwanda, on the north end of the beach at Pacific City, is this cool sandstone point with an even cooler sand dune behind it. It’s approximately 500 feet tall, and people actually climb it—for fun! Think of slogging through deep sand, like at the beach, only uphill—for more than 500 feet. Three feet up, slide back down a foot, catch your breath, do it again. Slowly, meticulously, making your way up the dune. Why? We hear the views are spectacular, some of the best along the Oregon coast. Well, I’ll just have to be content with the views I’ve had, which have been pretty amazing.

The Dune

The Dune

While on the beach, we watched as two people towed their fishing dories out of the surf behind their trailers. Once the dories are high and dry, they crank them up onto the trailers and away they go. Just like that. No need for a boat ramp. Now we know why fishing dories are flat on the bottom. This beach is one of the few in Oregon where you can drive vehicles on it.

loading them onto the trailers

pulling fishing dories out of the surf and onto trailers

There is another Haystack Rock here, making a total of three along the Oregon coast, and seven in the state. The most well-known is at Cannon Beach, farther north on the coast. But this one is the tallest, at 327 feet, making it the fourth tallest sea stack in the world. Unlike Cannon Beach’s Haystack, however, Pacific City’s is not intertidal; you can’t approach it by land, even at low tide. I don’t know. To me, that only adds to the mystique.

Haystack Rock, Pacific City

Haystack Rock, Pacific City

Oh, and did I mention that there’s a brewery overlooking it? Great views of Haystack Rock from Pelican Brewery today.

06-pelican-brewing

Devil’s Punchbowl

Devil's Punchbowl

Devil’s Punchbowl

Love this natural rock formation. We’re used to seeing the black, volcanic basalt rock along the coast. Now we’re seeing more sandstone. You can see the erosive scars from wind and rain. The name seems appropriate.

Lots of gray whales out there today.

And now for the obligatory scans up and down the coast from this vantage point….

looking north

looking north

 

looking south

looking south