Oregon: A trip south!

Since the Otter got done with his finals the first day of finals week, we have plenty of time to travel. So here we are, at the farm, half way through our 2,000 mile road trip. Lets see if I can remember what we've done so far. Because I'm not feeling particularly ambitious, this will probably just be Oregon.
We stopped  for a day on the coast of northern Oregon, and went to good old Cannon Beach.

 We proceeded to make touristy fools of ourselves, but that's always fun.

Phoebe does yoga, Brandon ponders life, waves crash. There was a pair of bald eagles hanging out on top of Haystack Rock, and a few interesting things washing up.

                 This might  be a comb jelly, but it could well be something quite different.
The weather was a bit bipolar, with sheeting rain and patches of sunshine.

We continued on south, stopping at beaches and view points here and there, the wind igniting heretofore unknown Phoebe-allergies, and oohhhing and aawwwwing over the scenery. You hear that the Oregon coast is beautiful, but you're never sure whether all the rhapsodizing is true... It is. 

We stopped for a leg stretching in Tillamook, and of course took a little tour of the Tillamook Cheese Factory...
The ladies below are handling blocks of cheese that weigh over 40 pounds. We felt a little bad for staring wide-eyed at the workers, but... they work in a factory with a public viewing platform, they're likely accustomed to it.
We of course had a few samples, got a little cheese and had a bowl of icecream. And then we were off again, vroom vrooming southward.

 Plenty of lighthouses along the coast, and it seemed like there was some sort of park every 2 miles.

 Along the way more and more flowers and sprouts appeared. And I got more and more excited.
Horsetail emerging to the left, and a particularly vibrant and lush red flowering currant above.

This was called Devil's Churn. It looked like a little stream had begun to erode this channel out, then the ocean took advantage of the opening and has been widening  and deepening it.
 
 One of the things we noticed was the abundance of plants we consider evil. At one point we passed a stand of holly that could have constituted an orchard. There was ivy and blackberry everywhere, and the further south we got the more scotch broom we saw in vigorous bloom. Here we have some sea caves.

We didn't make it as far south as we had hoped the this night, but we had a nice site, and this is where we saw this year's first trilliums (trilly-illy-ums is what we singsong now when we pass an especially nice flower). There was evergreen huckleberry blooming too, among other things. And sleeping in the car... surprising comfortable and wider than some bed's we've shared.

 And on we go. We started to pass cranberry fields at some point. The plantings themselves are sunk into a leveed area so that it can be flooded when harvest time comes, when the plant are shaken and the berries float up.

There was a pretty majestic view point from which we watched some surfers fiddling around in some small waves.  Whatever makes you happy, right?

 We pull off for this beach and after wandering a bit, Brandon says "I don't know why they make such a big deal about Cannon Beach, this is way better!" I would have to agree. There was a shark fin rock, shark teeth rocks, and a rock with a little tunnel carved through it.

See, there's a tunnel.... Our perception was probably improved by the fact that it was brilliantly sunny and much warmer than Cannon Beach had been.The beach succulent plants were starting to bloom here too, which I found pretty glorious.
The last I recall stopping in Oregon was here, at one of the multitudes of state parks. And there's this year's first violet!

 And with a halfhearted whoop, we crossed into California!

I stole this picture from the internet.