Schauers Hours: Oregon Coast!

We had a wonderful trip with my parents to the Oregon Coast during fall break! It was our 16th anniversary and my mom's 58th birthday so we celebrated both with a nice "time out" from real life to some beautiful country.
Day 1 October 14
Started early, we like to book those early flights where you have to be up at 4:00 am in order to make it to the airport in time, but the flight went well and we got to Oregon about 9:00 AM. We rented an awesome car with plenty of luggage space and comfortable seats for 4 and took off to Astoria. The weather was perfect! Around 70 degrees and sunny and calm. We climbed the Astoria Column to see the merge of the Columbia, Lewis and Clark, and Youngs rivers, 136 steps to the top! Then we walked along the river and stopped for lunch at "Bridgewater Bistro" which was a bit pricey, but really nice! We found the Cathedral Tree Trail despite road work and detours, and enjoyed a short hike through a beautiful enchanted forest. We stopped by the Lewis and Clark Memorial and enjoyed a cheesy historical film and another walk through a forest there, and saw Fort Clatsop--replica of the fort L & C wintered at when they arrived at the coast in 1804. We stopped by Sunset beach and marveled at the beautiful swells of the ocean and saw a herd of elk on the side of the road. We ended up at Seaside, where we stayed at "River Inn at Seaside" and ate at "Norma's" which was a cute lighthouse looking building situated on the downtown seaside strip to the beach where we bought some souvenirs. We actually were able to catch the sunset at Seaside Beach which was the only one we saw due to fog and clouds on other days. Everything worked out like a charm. Wonderful day!

The Mazda 5 hatchback

The Astoria Column

Fishing Port in Astoria along Columbia river

Bridgewater Bistro

Cathedral Tree Trail

Fort Clatsop

Forest trail at Lewis and Clark state park

Dad's crooked, his back

Elk herd

Sunset Beach

Norma's at Seaside

Seaside Beach

Day 2 Oct 15
Another glorious weather day. We drove to Tillamook Head Hike and wlked through 2 miles of another beautiful forest to a lookout to the ocean. Dad's back was really hurting so this hike must've been tough for him! But he soldiered on and never complained. We found him a walking stick to use that helped a lot, and I was kicking myself for not bringing my hiking poles. The hike would have taken us to Ecola Point if we would have hiked 7 miles from Tillamook head, we drove to the point instead. After that hike we drove to Canon Beach and walked to the haystack rock while Jared parked the car. He took a long time to catch up to us and the reason was because he stopped at a cafe and bought us all box lunches! It was a nice surprise and I really needed food. We drove to the Tillamook Cheese Factory and sampled cheese and saw how it was aged and packaged, and mom and dad and Jared got some ice cream. We sat in the sun to enjoy it and marveled again at the great weather. We then drove to Cape Meares and saw the lighthouse and lookouts there. We were able to watch some gray whales playing near the cape, Jared's binoculars sure were handy just then! There was an amazing Octopus tree we saw there too. As we drove to Lincoln city and stopped at Cape Lookout and we noticed an unbelievalble fog coming across the ocean towards shore. We watched it reach us and were completely enshrouded by fog the rest of the evening. It was cool! We ate at "Lees Chinese" and stayed at "Looking Glass Inn" which was the nicest place we stayed in--lots of space, whirlpool tub, fireplace. We felt so blessed!

Tillamook Head Trail hike

Ecola point

Canon Beach

Haystack Rock

Tillamook Cheese Factory

Cape Meares Lighthouse

Octopus Tree

Cape Lookout

Day 3 October 16
Happy anniversary to us! We sat on our balcony and watched the mystical mist for a while and then back to our tour of the coast. We first went to Devil's punch bowl, it was low tide so not much to see but still cool. We stopped by Yaquina Head lighthose on a whim (for some reason I had put the Yaquina Bay lighthose on the itinerary as the one to see, so glad we stopped here too!), and signed up for a guided tour at noon through the lighthouse which gave us time to watch another informative video in the visitors center, shop a little--dad liked his makeshift walking stick so much he decided to buy a real one here and had it with him the whole rest of the trip. We also took a small hike down to Quarry cape where a sea lion was perching on a rock for us. We LOVED the Yaquina Head Lighthouse tour! A cute little tour guide dressed in 1870s garb gave us lots of information about how lighthouses were run back in the day and let us climb all the way to the top to see the light and prisms and view. Its the tallest lighthouse on the coast and we had never been to the top of any lighthouse before so it was a very awesome experience. we found a picnic spot at the Yaquina Bay lighthouse to eat lunch and explore that cute home attached to the lighthouse. We drove to Devil's churn next which was way fun, then to Thors well and spouting horn, both on the same cape. Cool cliffs and jutting rocks everywhere! We stopped by the Heceta Head Lighthouse next and hiked only halfway to the keepers house which was pristine condition and gorgeious! We tried to go to the sea lion caves but there were no sea lions in the cave that day, so we didn't pay the $13 a person just to see the cave but contented ourselves with watching sea lions play in the water below the site. We made our way to Florence and ate at "Mo's" restaurant, famous around the coast for their clam chowder, and ordered lots of food, enough for lunch the next day. We stayed at River House Inn in Florence and my dad wasn't feeling well so he crashed, he did a lot on a sore back! That gave Jared plenty of time to watch the BYU game.

Looking Glass Inn

Devil's punchbowl

Quarry Cape

Yaquina Head Lighthouse

hiking to Devil's churn

Dad stretching his back

Devil's churn

Gorge at Devil's churn

Thor's Well

Cape Perpetua

Heceta Head Lighthouse and Keepers house

St Scenic Viewpoint

Mo's

Day 4 October 17
Jared and I got up a little early this day to scout the area, and we drove along some dunes and saw a few lakes. We rented a 4-seater ATV for an hour to ride the dunes in Florence, mom was having trouble finding a helmet that fit her head right and didn't aggravate her neck, so the dude at the counter opened a brand new helmet right out the box he thought would fit and thankfully it was the perfect helmet for her! Jared was so worried about Mom's neck and Dad's back he was being really cautious as he explored, in fact on one hill he didn't accelerate enough so he got stuck and slid backwards. Mom and dad climbed out of the ATV it was so funny. We just backed up and it was fine. It was still a fun and beautiful ride going slow. Once we got the the beach Jared let dad drive and suddenly we were on a roller coaster! Dad tore it up dodging driftwood, climbing sideways up hills, speeding up and accelerating down hills! I was laughing so hard that the little boy in him suddenly came out when he got behind that wheel. It was a lot of fun. We went to the grocery store to buy lunch for Sunday and snacks for the drive back to Portland, and stopped at Eel Lake to have our Mo's leftovers and salads. It ws a perfect setting, calm sunny no bugs and a glass lake. We made our way to Cape Arago and saw some botanical gardens and heard a bunch of sea lions but couldn't see them. When we stopped at Sebastian Reef we discovered the source of the sound, there were hundreds of sea lions sunning and playing on the reef. We finally found the Arago Lighthouse after much searching but it was closed to public. We made our way to Bandon and found Face Rock, the sun was out so the beach vistas there were amazing. We hit a stom and fog on the way to Cresence City, so we got a taste of all the Oregon Coast weather experiences. I got out our stnacks and cut sharpm Tillamook cheese and grapes for everyone int he car, and we likes it so much we ate the whole block of cheese. Good times.

Lake in Florence

Dunes City in Florence

Florence beach

Botanical Gardens at Cape Arago

Cape Arago Lighthouse

Face Rock

Lookout at Face Rock

Day 5 October 18
We got my folks up early today (7:00 am) so we could drive through the Jedediah Smith redwood forest and make it to church in Grant's Pass by 11:00. The hotels' breakfasts in Oregon were your basic continental fare, but the Best Western in Crescent City, CA served us a hot buffet! It was awesome. We drove through the forest and stopped at Stout Grove for a little walk. What giant trees!!! We liked it there so much we lingered a little too long and were 5 minutes late to church. My mom and I sang hymns all the way to Grant's Pass, we don't have much opportunity to sing together anymore so that was a treat. We had a nearly 4 hour drive to Oregon City to visit Jared's Aunt Laurie and cousin Crystal. It was a nice visit, short, but glad we did. We made it to our friend's home, Ben and Kelsey Nolte about 5:30. Jared took my parents to their hotel, but we stayed with the Nolte's for dinner and visited/caught up and got tips about best way to see the gorge the next day. We sure miss the Noltes, good people.

Smith River in Jedediah Smith Redwood Forest

Stout Grove

Crystal and Aunt Laurie Gervais

Day 6 October 19
Happy Birthday to Mom! We picked mom and dad up at 9:00 and headed into the Columbia River Gorge. We took the Historic Highway 30 so we could stop and see all the waterfalls. We fist saw Latourelle Falls, then Bridal Veil Falls, Wahkeena Falls, and the ultimate travel destination of Oregon--Multnomah falls, and it was spectacular. There was a huge tourist crowd at Multnomah, I couldn't believe our luck at not having such crowds to contend with at all the other places we had visited. Some coves we had all to ourselves! We stopped at a picnic site by Horsetail falls and then stopped at Oneonta Gorge. We explored that quite a bit, it was a huge spectacular gorge with massive rocks and tree fall to climb over, you had to wade up to your waist in order to see the falls so we didn't go that far but it was still "Gorge"-ous. The fall colors made it espcially beuaiful. We let dad nap in the car--even though by this day his back was doing much better he didn't want to over do it--while we hiked to Elowah falls, the only one that took some effort to get to, and it was totally worth it. Fern and moss covered forests, smell of pine, and weeping rocks all along the way to a beautiful circular cove where the water fell. I hope I never forget that experience. We had to make our way back at 2:30 so we could get some dinner before our flight, so we stopped at Sizzler in Portland and enjoyed a birthday dinner for mom, and then made our way to the airport. We dropped the rental car off and discovered we had traveled 1018 miles in all! Wow. What a great trip. Sad it was over, but glad mom had such a great birthday.