This is the third in a three part
extravaganza[i] about our July 4th trip to the
Oregon Coast. You may wish to read the
first and second
posts first, but hey, it’s up to you, I’m not the blog police.
Cape Meares Panoramic (raw)
Day 5
Day 5 is usually the point in a vacation where my grandiose
dreams of getting up at the crack of dawn, strapping 40 pounds of photography
gear to my back, and heading out into the morning chill start to give way to
the allure of soft, warm beds[ii].
Not to be deterred, I dragged myself once more out onto the beach, but didn’t
find much of consequence.
Anemones, Western Gull, Least
Sandpiper, Pocked Rock
The plan for the day was an excursion out of Cannon Beach
down to Tilamook to visit the Tilamook Cheese Factory. I cannot emphasize
enough how much a priority this was for my wife; she comes from a cheese-loving
people. The drive south through the highlands had some fantastic views of the
long stretch of the Oregon coast. We passed through a half-dozen generic tourist
towns on the way to Tilamook as the land gradually flattened to rolling dairy
country.
Coastal Vista
The Tilamook Factory is seemingly the big tourist draw for northern
Oregon. Even given that it was the 4th of July weekend, the crowds
were pretty intense. We took the disappointingly short tour which was made
gloriously worthwhile by the “free cheese bins” in the tasting area at the end.
I had an unhealthy amount of cheese, and then bought a massive bag of cheese
curds to go. The largest lines were for their ice cream, which apparently is a
local fave. The ice cream, as it turned out, was not free like the cheese, but
pretty tasty anyway.
Tilamook Cheese Factory, Cheese Line,
Cheese Factory Floor, Ice Cream Line, Family with Ice Cream
On our way back we took the “three Capes” tour of some of
the refuges and parks along the coast. I managed to find some sea lions basking
far offshore, and vast flocks of Murres and other sea birds. We spent a little
time at Cape Meares where they have a Fresnel lens lighthouse which is apparently a big deal. The
180+ degree sweep of the Pacific Ocean visible from the lighthouse was
impossible to catch on film in a way that really conveyed its vastness.
Cape Meares Coast, Cape Meares Raw
Panoramic, Island (B&W), Fresnel Light, Lighthouse, Cape Cliffside, Sea
Lions, Murre Colony
Before we left, we followed signs to see the famed “Octopus
Tree”. Sadly, this turned out to pretty much just be a tree with a lot of
branches, not a tree full of octopi. However, that utter failing was buffered
by the chance to see my old field nemesis[iii],
the Peregrine Falcon, making dramatic dives along the cliffside nearby.
So-called Octopus Tree.
That night there was pizza and more Agricola, during which
my empire of sheep expanded nicely.
Day 6
On our last full day, instead of heaving my weary carcass
toward the early morning shore like an aged Elephant Seal, I lifted a
metaphorical middle finger in the general direction of the beach and opted to
sleep in.
The whole family went for a long last walk on the beach,
watching the wildlife in the tidal pools and got good views of some fairly
complacent Pigeon Guillemots learning to fly and feed from a rocky outcrop. If
the Peregrine Falcon is the Brad Pitt[iv]
of the bird world, the Pigeon Guillemots are the Woody Allen.
Cannon Beach Vista, Pigeon Guillemots,
Beach Wood (B&W), Dave and Mom McColgin
Since it was our last leisurely morning, we went back to the
Pig and Pancake for another ridiculously large brunch. One of the local
delicacies is, I kid you not, the Marionberry[v].
Unlike its homophonic political counterpart, however, the Marionberry is a fine
upstanding part of the local community.
We saw Kate’s brother and his wife off after breakfast, and
then went with her parents up to Seaside, another nearby tourist town. It was
about the time we rolled into Seaside that we realized our assumptions about
the Oregon coast, based mostly on the over-the-top floral niceness of Cannon
Beach, may not be entirely universal. Simply put, Seaside was like a
particularly bad stretch of the Jersey Shore on a weekend where a booking error
lead to Guidofest, the Gathering of the Juggalos, and some low budget Spring
Break knockoff happening all at the same time in the same place. We gave it a
fair shot, but the combination of ultra-touristy schlock and outright squalor
had us returning to Cannon Beach fairly quickly[vi].
The rest of the day was devoted to bumming around the beach,
reading, napping and other traditional beach cottage pursuits. We managed to
snag some last minute reservations at the Irish Table, a very exclusive[vii]
little restaurant we had been trying to get into all week long. The meal was fantastic;
full of Irish food[viii],
we waddled back to the hotel.
The Irish Table
All week long I had been trying to get one of the fire pits
on the beach outside the hotel for an evening on fire. People held on to them
like they were gold mines…several times I left a chair or two down there, only
to find them discarded and someone else squatting at our fire pit. On this last
evening we were finally able to fend off the flip-flop-clad wolves and get our
own fire going. As the evening dwindled on I noticed some folks down the beach
with large lights along the beach near their fire. As the lights started to
ascend, I realized they were launching fire balloons. The sight was a great way
to end the trip, sitting by myself in the dark by a fire watching fire balloons
rise into the midnight sky above the crashing waves[ix].
NOTES
[i]
Italian for “long-winded, rambling diatribe”.
[ii]
It’s also about the time when I start getting tired of taking pictures. I
usually end up with hundreds of pictures from the first day, and then am lucky
if I feel like taking any by the last day. First day photos are perfectly
composed and artistic creations from my best gear. Last day photos are likely
to be half-assed phone camera pictures of food.
[iii]
I hike in areas where the Peregrines are fairly common, but had never seen one
in the wild before. The sheer chance of never having seen one had grown to such
an extent that they were officially upgraded to nemesis status. As nemeses go,
I suppose a falcon is a more impressive than having to say your primary nemesis
is something like a Tufted Titmouse.
[iv]
Think Brad Pitt in Troy as opposed to Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys.
[v]
They use it in about everything. Marionberries in the syrup, in the milkshake,
in the crepes, etc etc ect. Literally the first and last meals, and most in
between, had marionberries which are pretty much just Dark Blackberries. However, much like other things with dark
versions (chocolate, Phoenix, etc.), the Dark version is inherently superior to
the boring normal version.
[vi]
Even the wildlife there was cut-rate. Instead of the regal Western Gulls and
seabirds of Cannon Beach, Seaside mostly had actual pigeons and Ring-billed
Gulls, the Ringo Starrs of the Gull family.
[vii]
Their exclusivity was in part due to the populartity of their food, but also
the incredibly tiny size of the restaurant; essentially the back room of a
large coffee shop.
[viii]
Which apparently consists of more than just steak, potatoes, soda bread, and
whiskey. For instance, there was also a parsley garnish on my whiskey-potatoes
steak.
[ix]
Though part of me was thinking in less poetic terms about the potential forest
fire danger of launching burning things toward dry timber.
