June 19 - 20, 2024 - Lafe and Faith's Odyssey

Beaches, Rocks, and Pools

In the morning of Wednesday, June 19th, we awoke somewhat groggily thanks to our midnight interruption and headed to downtown Astoria to get some work in before wandering around town. We got several hours in at a small coffee shop in the heart of the main drag. Unfortunately, we did not realize until later that this coffee shop did not have a bathroom, so I had to make a quick jog across the downtown area to some rather nasty public bathrooms. After Faith and I were done reading and working, respectively, we wandered around and poked our heads into numerous little stores. We learned that the area has a very strong Nordic heritage and is a lot less nice than one might hope or expect. Our next stop was the Goonies house, which doesn’t look quite like it did in the movies, but the neighborhood was clearly set up to accommodate the all the visitors. Then, we started our journey down the Pacific coast, stopping at the first Costco we could find to pick up our lunch and dinner for the day: a rotisserie chicken and some strawberries. Lupper in tow, we stopped in Seaside, OR to munch and meander up and down the beach and through the town. Satisfied, we headed over the mountain to Cannon Beach, home of the famous Haystack Rock and its many tide pools. The wind was cold and the water was colder, so we didn’t stay long and opted to finish our lunch and find a place a few miles south of town to sleep. Our spot was just off the highway and provided a little protection from the cars whipping by along Highway 101. We made sure that there were no signs about camping or sleeping in vehicles before we shut our eyes for the night.

The next morning, we got up at the crack of dawn to go see the tide pools at the lowest tide point of the day. We made our way back up to Cannon Beach and walked down to the big rock amidst a rather chilly morning wind and mists coming off the ocean. We saw lots of barnacles, mussels, starfish, anemones, and aptly named Tidepool Sculpins in the pools. We were cold but nothing was open yet, so we got ready in some fairly clean public bathrooms then hit the first coffee shop to open. We claimed a corner spot and shared a coffee for the next few hours. I got my work in and Faith got some chapters read. As the nearby stores opened, Faith ditched me, returning to share a lunch of excellent potato soup and fresh bread from the cafe. While she was gone, a bird flew into the coffee shop and made a show of trying to get out every possible window instead of the door. It finally came to the window I was sitting by, and I managed to gently but firmly grab it, walk it outside, and set it free. The employees thanked me and said they should hire me: I was tempted, but I don’t think I could deal with that many people each day. After lunch, we started heading down the coast, stopping a couple times for scenic viewpoints, thrift stores, and at our destination: Tillamook, OR. If you’re thinking to yourself, “That name sounds familiar, isn’t it on cheese or something?”, you’d be absolutely correct. We made our first stop in town at the Tillamook creamery, acquiring a prodigious amount of free samples and taking a peek at their displays. We had a cheese tour booked for the next day, so we elected to get cheese tomorrow and ice cream today. So, we got a three pint jug of Chocolate Cookies & Cream ice cream then went to town on it in the parking lot. We almost managed to finish it before we were stuffed. It was delicious, and I’d probably do it again once those calories wore off… probably sometime next year. We needed to do something active, so we drove to one of the capes near Tillamook and meandered along the beach, poking at every rock and shell we came across. It was starting to get dark, so we drove up the mountain and found a lovely pull off with a few other vanlifers to get settled in for the night. In true Pacific Northwest fashion, we were completely clouded in, which made for some fun pictures around the campfire we kindled to stay warm. We got out a couple drinks and stayed up talking about a menagerie of things before crawling into bed.