Calvin's Weblog

The Oregon Coast

This Victoria Day long weekend, Carole and I drove the Oregon Coast, from Astoria in the North, straight through to Florence.

This is just a quick blog entry - I'll tell more stories later, when all the pictures are developed but for now here's a quick rundown of what we did... as well, I'll throw some pix that we took with my cheap digital camera at the end...

(Click here to browse satellite maps of the coastine.)

The drive from home, straight throught Washington to the Oregon border took about five hours. Instead of taking the I-5 straight down though, we decided to vere off at Kelso and take the Longview bridge over to Nort West Orgeon, so that we could drive the historic (and scenic!) Oregon Coast, starting at Astoria (where The Goonies, The Ring, Kindergarten Cop, and Short Circuit were filmed).

Our first night was not far from there, at Seaside, OR - a boardwalked family-vacation town, much like Ocean City, NJ.

The next day we drove all the Way to Florence - where the biggest sand dunes in North America can be found. Of course, we made MANY stops along the way, including Canon Beach, Ecola State Park, The Dunes National Park, Seal Rock, Otter Rock, Devil's Puncbowl (or was it Devil's Cauldrin?), Lincoln City, Tillamook, Depoe Bay, etc, etc.

We relaxed in Florence, got lots of great pictures, had dinner and drinks on the Old Town pier, went to a fair, had ice cream, then retired to our nice view suite at the Best Western for the finale of Desperate Housewives (lol ...sad but true...)

So, quickly, ('cause I'm at work, and I'm busy!) here are a few pictures:

This first one's a money shot from the beach in Seaside - it had been raining all day, but the sun came out (very briefly) shortly after we arived, so we ran back to the beach with our cameras to get some sunset shots.

This cool tree is in Ecola State Park. The weather was much better the next day, as you can see!

The Rocks below Ecola State Park - Canon Beach and the rest of the big haystack rocks are directly to the left of where this picture was taken...

This is the Devil's Punchbowl and Otter Rock in the background - amazing place!

On Heceta beach in Florence:

Under the historic Bridge in Old Town Florence, with the rolling dunes in the background.

More Sand Dunes. These things go on for a hundred miles - some are over 300 feet tall... it's impossible to take a picture of their magesty, which is why I added the link to the satellite photos at the top of this entry - you gotta check 'em out ... pretty darned cool!

Oh- and Carole has added some of her favorite pix from my digital camera to HER photo gallery page - be sure to check out http://itsallgood.sed.ca/Oregon for more photos!

Posted by Calvin at May 24, 2005 11:47 AM