Oregon Coast Road Trip

Better late than never, right? I'm finally posting pictures from our road trip to to the Oregon Coast. We started by making a bee-line to Portland for a visit with Brandon's older sister Heather's family. On the way we camped at Shelton Wayside County Park and had the entire west loop to ourselves. Gavin and the pups and I hiked the 2-mile nature trail while Brandon looked (unsuccessfully) for a place to fish. We made it to 'Stumptown' the next day and we stayed at Heather's brother Quade's house in the city. It's a gorgeous place that was built in 2009 from recycled and energy-efficient materials, but it was designed to fit in to the style of the neighborhood so it had an old-home feel, inside and out. We stayed two nights, which gave us time to go to the Oregon Zoo and to Pyramid Brewing for dinner. Heather and Rhiannon drove from there to the coast with us and we spent a few hours together playing on Cannon Beach before they headed back to Portland and we headed on down the coast. The weather all along the coast was chilly, with highs in the 60s, so we didn't do any real swimming. We camped the first night at Nehalem Bay State Park. Right away we were impressed with the Oregon State Parks system. The facilities were nice, the campgrounds were quiet, they offered a variety of evening ranger programs, and the scenery and beach access were divine. We stopped at the Tilamook Cheese factory the next day for ice cream and picked up some cheese and summer sausage to eat for lunch, along with fresh Oregon cherries, apples, and peas.
Newport was our next destination. We camped two nights at Beverly Beach State Park, which gave us time to take in a visit to the Oregon Coast Aquarium, and, of course, the Rogue Nation World Headquarters. We enjoyed a tasty dinner at the brewery the first night. For the second night's dinner, we picked up a live crab ($5/lb) from a commercial fisherman at Newport Bay (sure, we could have bought a cooked one, but what would have been the fun in that?). After leaving Newport we ended up at a the US Forest Service Sutton Beach campground near Florence. Brandon sought out a fishing hole while Gavin and I hiked around on the trails. As the evening wore on it started to rain. Brandon took shelter under some trees and cooked dinner for me and Gavin while we hid in the tent watching DVDs. We packed up our camp the next morning in the rain, but by the time we got to our next campsite near Sisters the sun had come out and we had no trouble getting everything dried out. As much as we loved camping on the coast, it was nice to finally get back to the land of free campsites and dry air! Two more days of driving got us all the way home, where we faced the daunting tasks of unloading and cleaning our camping gear, tending to an overgrown yard, and tackling a mountain of laundry. Was it worth it? Heck, yeah! If you didn't already click on the link at the beginning of this monstrous memoir, CLICK HERE to see more pictures.