Cannon Beach, OR

Our next stop was continuing up the coast to Cannon Beach. We had stopped here last fall on our way down the coast from Washington, but when we found out that Ethan and Stephanie were going to be there to celebrate her birthday, we changed our schedule around a bit so we could join them for a day. I must confess, I do love all the opportunities I've been blessed with of being able to tour and see all the glories of this land (I mean, who wouldn't), but I also miss my family and will take ANY opportunity to see them. ❤️

Cannon Beach, just a bit south of Astoria and the Columbia River outlet to the Pacific, is known for 

  1. being the location of some some of the scenes in Spielberg's The Goonies (the scary ones along the water and with the sea caves)

  2. an artists colony 

  3. great wide soft sand beach with protected areas for sea birds and with fabulous tide pooling,

  4. a foodies delight  

  5. a charming little community on the sea.

We had a lovely day. I think Stephanie enjoys tide pooling as much as I do. What a treat!  While the boys and Martin tolerate my obsession, they are not nearly as fascinated with observing these creatures as I am so it's nice to have someone else who shares my passion. 🙂  Besides both Martin and Ethan were pretty sure they spotted a puffin flying to one of the rocks, so it was a win for all. 


On to pics …

The sea stack the farthest to the left is actually Tillamook Lighthouse. See the next pic for a closer view.

Tillamook Lighthouse was built on a basalt sea stack over a mile out into the ocean. Looks pretty lonely out there.

These sea stacks are where the tide pooling and bird sanctuary are found.   At low tide there is an abundance of marine life and there are always lots of birds.

Last year there were very few sea stars, but fortunately the population seemed to have recovered because we found lots of them.

This orange one was hanging upside-down.

and this purple one is hanging out with all these closed anemones. 

Here's another purple one in a "dramatic swoon" pose.

Sea stars eat mussels. They pick out the mussel of choice, form their body and arms around it and use the force of the suction from their arms and body to force open the mussel shell. Then they help themselves to the yummy inside. I get it. I love mussels. It does mean the end of the mussel … but as you can see, there are way more mussels than there are sea stars.

An open anemone with a lump fish guppy swimming in the foreground.

And here at some pretty pink anemones.

More open green anemones 

and some battered and worn shells. There were lots of funny little hermit crabs, but they were hard to photograph.

This next series of photos is of a gull eating real seagull food (not human food like French fries). 

At first I thought it was trying to get to the mussels. Then I thought it was trying to get to the mussel the sea star was working on. You know, sort of stealing dinner from the sea star.

But as I continued to look at the pics, I wondered if the seagull was eating the sea star??? So I did some research, and yes, seagulls do eat sea stars.  So…you decide, either the seagull is stealing the sea stars dinner or having the sea star for dinner! 😳

Well, excuse me, but I never eat and tell.

Common Mures 

Afternoon cocktails on Ethan and Stephanie's deck

Ethan and Stephanie 

a riot of daisies 

Sunset and fires on the beach

The fires on the beach look like lightening bugs. Tiny glowing specs. And now we have the moon and the faintest outline of Haystack Rock, too. 

It was a good day 🧡❤️🧡


We stayed at a harvest host, the Blue Heron French Cheese Company. Besides having great cheese, they also had a petting farm. Cheese and animals! Does it get better than that? 

I, of course, loved the heron theme.

Peacocks

and goats 

and bunnies

and geese (check out the "gooseneck" curve of the neck of the goose on the left).

And, of course, I loved this giant sculpture.


Next stop:  Crater Lake NP (I know it looks like it's a photoshopped pic, but it's not. It's just that stunning there.)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho

Image
Craters of the Moon national monument, Idaho  Finally we fill in the Idaho sticker on the map. ❤️ We've been traveling thru the desert and Rockies for what seems like ages. It has been dry and rocky with shades of brown and tan. I do find the desert lovely, but it was May and I was ready for some green. I thought surely Idaho would have green and it did, only not where we were going. We went to a “unique” volcanic landscape. Yup, volcanic. Not much green there.  Of course, it was really interesting and the campground and camp sites were right down in the lava flow. I mean, when do you get the opportunity to camp in a lava flow??? (But, truth be told, I was a bit grumpy about the whole thing, sorry  Martin.) Now, I don't want to be accused of exaggerating, there was a bit of green; an occasional tree, spots of grass and some lichen. As I've pointed out before, lichen can be used as a measure of the air quality of a park, so while there may not be many plants involved in re...
Read more

a new year of travel, a new adventure

Image
A new travel year with a renewed sense of purpose, “The Give-Back Year” We joined Habitat for Humanity, Care-a-Vanners, and the Methodist Church, NOMADS, and headed out to see what we could do. Even if it is but a drop in the ocean (considering our current political climate) I can only hope our drop will create some ripples and help provide some relief for someone in a time of need. Perhaps even an opportunity to break a cycle and truly create a better life. All I know is that I have received so much that is good in this life, the least I can do is try to pass some along.  And so, we venture forth… This was definitely going to be a new sort of adventure. Martin was pretty skilled for this type of work and ok.  I had worked on the local Habitat for Humanity houses a few times,  dropping in for a day when I could,  and we'd certainly done a lot of work on our house over the years. But, my ace-in-the-hole, was that my father and grandfather had both been car...
Read more

White Pass and Skagway

Image
White Pass and Skagway, Alaska! We made it! Our first stop in Alaska. My eyes were wide, my mind was open and I was ready to experience Alaska, whatever it held in store. But before I get into Skagway, I just have to talk about the drive from Whitehorse through the White pass.  It was so beautiful, so stunning, so unusual. As I said in my last post, I know we were still a long way from the Arctic circle, but it just felt like we were there, in the arctic. After leaving Whitehorse and making our way up through the mountains we came upon a most surprising site. A desert with sand dunes! Say, what? I'm not kidding, but I'll explain more with the pics. Continuing up over the mountains there is a section of highway where it is relatively flat, lots of water, lakes, rivers, few to no trees, (and the ones that are there are misshapen), shrubs, rocky, barren, much still covered with melting snow and ice surrounded by mountains off in the distance. White mountains. S...
Read more