Oceanside, Oregon

After leaving Lewis & Clark in Portland, we drove west to the coast. We rented a house near Oceanside, Oregon, which is a seaside town in the southern part of the northern coast. The Oregon coast is broken down, in our Fodor’s book anyway, into northern, central and southern coasts, and we are staying at the southern part of the northern coast. The nearest bigger town is Tillamook, which US readers may associate with the cheese of the same name.

We arrived after dark so couldn’t see anything out the big windows in the living room, but we could hear the ocean from outside. Huge surprise in the morning to come out and see the view!

We had a very lazy day on Friday, with three trips to the beach and a lot of reading time. There’s pretty much one restaurant in this little town and we went there for dinner (and plan to return!) – delicious seafood. The beach is known for the Three Arches Rocks off shore. It’s hard to see the arches from land because I think they go through the rock parallel to the coast. The rocks are the home to seabird colonies. The beach is making us think of Howth and Ireland’s Eye a lot!

Tufts of sea grass (my term…) dot the beach. They get all swishy when the tide comes in. Note the big rock at the end of the beach there, more on that in a bit.

Lots of sand dollars on the beach. People pick them up, and they also were out collecting live mussels in buckets this morning!

John’s foot is doing really well. He’s leaving mysterious non-matching footprints in the sand.

I ran down to the southern end of the beach and came across a very cool washed up tree.

Haystacks

What’s a summer vacation these days without being in a tsunami evacuation zone? Last summer’s trip was also in the zone. This time, we are staying up in the green safety area, and we know what to do if the alarms start while on the beach.

Close-up of the mussels on the rocks in a tidal area.

So many mussels!

OK, so this is where the beach gets crazy. Around the big rock that we first experienced as the end of the beach because it was out in the water, there’s a whole other beach. At low tide, you can walk right around the rock, to what we’re now calling the “bonus beach” or “secret beach”. The bonus beach is really cool, it’s where all these mussels are, and there are way more rock formations over there. We also found a tunnel through the big rock that allows people to access the bonus beach, and more importantly get back safely if the tide has come in! Will get a pic of that later.