Oregon Coast,Oregon
It was spring of 2022 and my kids have a week off for Spring break so we thought we would go down to Oregon and visit some family who live south of Portland, and then drive down the Oregon Coast. It sounded great, but typical of a Pacific Northwest April, it was cold and wet, at one point it did start slushy snowing and hailing. Regardless, the kids still wanted to play in the sand, and when we started the trip in Oregon’s northwest corner, we actually had a couple of days of beautiful weather. We started the trip in Astoria, which for those who don’t know, is where they filmed The Goonies, one of my all time favorite movies. We hung out in Astoria and looked at the Sea Lions hanging out on the pier, and went to the beach to see the remains of the Peter Iredale, which crashed in 1906 near the mouth of the Columbia River. All that remains after over 100 years of salt water waves crashing into it is a small portion of the bow, but it is still cool to see it. We also stopped in Seaside, Oregon, which is a small town between Astoria and Cannon Beach. It is a nice little town, but my favorite park is a small aquarium they have there that is a ton of fun. The have an octopus in the middle that is really active. Down the coast a little further is Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock, which is the famous landmark that fits the Spanish Doubloon in The Goonies.
Sea Lions hanging out on a pier in Austoria.
The wreck of the Peter Iredale.
The wreck of the Peter Iredale.
Octopus at the Seaside Aquarium.
Octopus at the Seaside Aquarium.
Octopus at the Seaside Aquarium.
Aiden at Haystack Rock.
Haystack Rock.
Haystack Rock.
Haystack Rock.
Looking back at Haystack Rock.
Looking back at Haystack Rock.
We continued driving south from Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock. We stopped in a couple of the parks along the way including Ecola and Hug Point State Park, where there was a nice hike to the beach and the Hug Point Waterfall. The weather started to turn, it got pretty cold and rainy, but the kids still wanted to run on the beach, so we stopped at a couple beaches along the way south including Cape Kiwanda that had some cool sandstone cliffs, but you can see that even at the beaches we were bundled up. We continued south, stopping at the “Devil’s Punch-bowl”, where it looks like a large hole in the ground with surf coming into it from a small open cave. Almost halfway down the coast we stopped at Newport and once again visited an aquarium. The Oregon Coast aquarium is much bigger than Seaside’s, and includes a research component and some amazing displays. One of the displays is a underwater tunnel with sharks that swim over you. As the weather got worse, we stopped less often at beaches, but still stopped at a couple places that were really cool. One of those places was the Sea Lion Caves, where hundreds of Sea Lions, one of the rare places in the US that Sea Lions live year round. You have to take an elevator through the cliff to go from the top down to the sea cave where the Sea Lions live. There is also a view of the Hecata Head Lighthouse from the cave. One of the last places we stopped on our way down the coast was the Oregon Dunes Recration Area, we didn’t stay long, but the kids wanted to run up one of the huge dunes, so they did and then we kept going. We stopped at Coos Bay and decided since the weather wasn’t great to head back to Portland and visit family some more.
