Our Last Week in Oregon - Exploring the Northern Coast

Greetings!  We just arrived in Washington state yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed our last week in Oregon on the coast.  Enjoy the recap!

After a lovely visit to Willamette Valley, we headed back to the Coast and stayed in the cute port town of Garibaldi just north of Tillamook.  Our campsite was on the harbor and we stayed there for 3 nights.  We were a short walk away from the pier with the historic Coast guard house at the end.  It was a beautiful walk and several people were crabbing and we had some interesting conversations with a few people - I love eating crab but honestly didn't know too much about catching them.

First - a few photos of our campsite:

And here are a few photos of the pier and crabbing.  I also took a few shots of the railing where you can see all the marks along the wood from the lines to the crabbing pots.

We enjoyed a ride on the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad, a historic train / non-profit that went from Garibaldi to the next town north - Rockaway Beach.  It's a small town with a big beach and we enjoyed our visit.  The train ride was 30-minutes along the coast and we walked the beach, had lunch, and then went back to Garibaldi.

We drove back to Rockaway Beach the next day as they have a Cedar Preserve that features some of the largest Western Red Cedar trees on the west coast - it was a short walk along a scenic boardwalk.

150 feet tall 49 feet wide

 

We went out to the Meares Lighthouse the next morning and the views were so pretty.  This area also featured an Octopus Tree - when you see the photos, you'll know why it is called that!

That afternoon, we headed to Tillamook Creamery, which is a farmer owned coop similar to Cabot in Vermont  Tillamook won an award for best cheddar cheese in the world (!!) and is also know for it's fantastic ice cream!  It is very popular and therefore was quite a zoo!  They have a great self-guided tour that overlooks the factory floor and it was fun to watch the production - Paul took a great video which you can check out here.  They are experts at moving people along and our line for the ice cream went very quickly.  We decided to share a sampler where you can 3 different flavors - we chose Oregon Strawberry, Marionberry Pie, and Mint Chocolate Chip - all delicious!

Then it was time to head to our next destination - Astoria, Oregon.  But as we were leaving Garibaldi, we gave the Airstream a long overdue bath!

We loved Astoria - such an interesting place and historically significant in two major ways.  First, there is the Lewis and Clark National Historic Park as this is where Lewis & Clark ended up and the visitor centers were great detailing their journey from 1804 to 1806 when Thomas Jefferson was president and as you'll see by the photo below, their quest was the Pacific Ocean.  It was very interesting how smoothly the trip went - all things considered - and what an amazing job they did capturing all of the details of the journey - which definitely blazed the trail for travel to the west by providing significantly helpful information for future generations.  Pretty impressive.

The second major way that Astoria is historically significant is through its maritime culture.  Astoria is right on the Columbia River (south side) at the mouth of the Pacific Ocean and is a major shipping route.  The Columbia River is so large and flows so swiftly out to the Pacific - it carries much silt and created a very dangerous sand bar just outside the river's mouth and there were thousands of shipwrecks.  They built two very large jetties on either side which helped tremendously, along with ensuring each ship is  accompanied by a Pilot boat / captain coming in and leaving the River.  

There is a great Maritime Museum downtown in Astoria which beautifully detailed of the city's rich maritime history.

Roll on roll off car carrier inbound

The Columbia Lightship 

We then explored the north side of the river at the Pacific - called Cape Disappointment.  We drove across the Astoria-Megler bridge to get there and Cape Disappointment is in Washington state.  Beautiful scenery as well as two lighthouse within 2 miles of each other.  This is rare, but given the challenges of these waterways, they added an additional lighthouse to help ships navigating from the north.

Windswept tree near the lighthouse

The next day we went to the south of the Columbia River's mouth - Fort Stevens, back in Oregon.  This area is also rich in history and was very active protecting the coast during World War II.  We rode our bikes and also got a closer look at the South Jetty - pretty amazing.  There is also a shipwreck that is still on the beach.

Astoria is a cool small city - some refer to it as a "mini San Francisco" - there are some hills and we found the downtown area quaint - we enjoyed the Sunday market and also checked out the Astoria Column which overlooks the city and river.  It's 164 steps and the art outside depicts the Lewis & Clark journey.

We stayed in Astoria 4 nights and thoroughly enjoyed our visit to this interesting small city.  Here are a few photos of our campsite:

We departed yesterday morning and are now in Washington state and exploring Mt. St. Helens, which has been amazing.  Will be posting about that soon.

Thanks for following along - cheers and love, Jen & Paul