My Souvenir Memories: Cannon Beach

Click here for a Video of our day in Astoria!

Got up around 6 am and showered before meeting Kent & Laurel at the Moderno's side of the breakfast buffet. There was no line so I thought it would be a good time to get a freshly made waffle. The waffles looked so good...but were so tasteless. Even the butter and syrup couldn't salvage the flavor so I grabbed a bran muffin and yogurt instead.

At 7:45 while we were eating, the announcement was made that we could disembark. We grabbed our stuff from the room and left the ship. Local people had set up tents and were selling jewelery, paintings, knitted hats & scarves, seasoned nuts, etc. The items were nice quality and not the usual "made in China" souvenirs that you see at most ports. To get out of the port area, we walked by some huge piles of logs which I presume were waiting to be shipped somewhere.

Bob and Kent walked ahead to the Enterprise car rental office which was located right under the end of the long Astoria-Megler bridge. The bridge stretches over 4 miles across the Columbia River connecting Astoria to the state of Washington.

Laurel and I walked part of the way until we found a bench at one of the trolley stops and waited for the guys to pick us up. I had booked our rental car last July through Discount USA Car Rental and chose an intermediate sized SUV because the price was only a few dollars more than a compact car. Since then the price on the car had risen to around triple that so I was happy I booked when I did!

A little history to explain our first stop. In 1805, the Lewis and Clark expedition made their winter camp in an area that became the city of Astoria. In order to obtain salt for flavoring their food and preserving meat, a group went south a little ways to what is now Seaside, OR and built an oven-like system that was used to boil sea water. They spent a week at the "salt works" evaporating the water and collecting the salt that remained in order to have enough to last through the winter. Finding the "salt works" was to be our first stop of the day. I had an address so when we reached Seaside, we drove through residential neighborhoods until we spotted it. It was actually a reproduction, but interesting nonetheless..

Stop #2 of the day was just a few miles south down the highway...Ecola State Park. We paid the $5/car entry fee and drove in to get an excellent view down the rugged coastline. The trail to a scenic overlook was closed due to erosion from recent rains.

The drive through the park was quite scenic with waterfalls and a forest of ferns and moss covered trees.

Driving a little further into the park we stopped at Indian Beach. Laurel and I sat on a picnic table near the parking lot while the guys climbed down on to the beach to do some exploring.

From Ecola State Park, it was just a few miles to reach the town of Cannon Beach. We parked at a public lot by the visitor's center and stopped in to ask about some of the places we were thinking about visiting in the area. Since it was low tide, the lady working there suggested we go down to the beach right away and then decide what other stops we might want to make later.

Cannon Beach is the location of the iconic Haystack Rock. A film crew was set up on the beach and were filming a commercial for the Oregon State Lottery.

With the low tide, we were able to walk across the wide beach and go right up to the base of Hay Stack Rock.

Anemones and sea urchins were easy to spot in the many tidal pools on the beach.

Haystack Rock is a sanctuary for many different types of birds, including puffins. An area at the base of the rock was roped off and a naturalist pointed out a nesting bird...a black oystercatcher, which is an endangered species. With my camera zoomed in I was able to get this (somewhat blurry) shot.

I had hoped we would have time to drive even further south to visit other spots along the coastline, but we spent so much time exploring around Haystack Rock, that we decided we had better just head back towards Astoria. All aboard time was 3:30 and we needed to allow a little extra time to get gas and return the car. Oh...and we also made a stop at a Walgreens to pick up some motion sickness pills just in case we encountered any more rough seas.

The route to get off the beach required climbing a sand hill and then crossing a stream of water...but we made it! ;)

A few photos with the locals before driving back to Astoria.

Quite a few popular movies have been filmed in Astoria...Kindergarten Cop, Free Willy, Into the Wild, Short Circuit, and others, including Goonies...a favorite of my son's many years ago when he was about 10 years old. I thought it would be fun to drive by and get a photo of the house where the movie took place, but I guess too many others had the same idea and the home owners got tired of the traffic. Here is what we saw at the bottom of the hill leading up to the house...

While we were looking for the Goonies house, we kept hearing a barking noise. By following the sound, we discovered these guys. Probably cousins of the ones we saw on Pier 39 in San Francisco!

While watching the sea lions, this trolley rolled by. The trolley tracks run along the shoreline and you can ride one-way for a dollar...or pay $2 and ride all day long.

The Astoria Column was on my list of "maybe things to do" but we were running short of time so decided to just drive by. We were at the top of the hill before we realized we were going to have to pay just to get in the parking lot so we convinced the guy taking money that we just wanted to turn around. I snapped a few quick photos in the process. I'm sure the view from the top would have been great.

I believe these red flowers were azaleas...just gorgeous!

The guys dropped Laurel & I off at the ship and we browsed through the craft stands before boarding. Once Bob returned, we went to the buffet looking for a snack and then watched sail away from the adjacent Great Outdoors.