FLORENCE, OR & CANNON BEACH, OR

Our next stop was Florence, OR, a sleepy little town. We drove to Heceta Head Lighthouse and it started raining pretty hard. Judy stayed in the truck and read while Mike hiked to the lighthouse and got a private tour. It was built in 1884 and the light burned 12 gallons of kerosene a day. All supplies had to be brought by boat since there were no roads.

We stopped in Tillamook, Oregon at the cheese factory. They have a self-guided tour and you can observe the entire production line from large bricks of cheese, to the cutting, trimming to size, packaging, etc. They had about six different types of cheeses to sample, and if you didn’t see what you wanted to sample, all you had to do was ask. They were quite generous.

We arrived at Cannon Beach, Oregon mid-afternoon. This campground is the prettiest we’ve stopped at this trip as there are many trees and the sites are not right on top of each other. Cannon Beach’s setting is spectacular. There are four miles of pristine beach with thickly forested headlands on one side and immense rock formations rising from the beach.

Our first sightseeing was at Ecola State Park north of town. We hiked to a vista point where we saw pelicans on the rocks and even saw a bald eagle. It was a lovely walk in wonderful cool, breezy weather. There was a lighthouse that was built in 1881 lying just offshore. It was built on a lone rock (a sea stack) out in the Pacific and replaced by a whistle buoy in 1887.

Our next stop was Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach’s most recognizable landmark and one of the largest sea stacks on America’s Pacific coast. It towers 235 feet above the edge of the shoreline. We were there at low tide with a bunch of other people for tide pooling. We saw a few star fish, which they call sea stars. They were very low on haystack rock. There were also a lot of seagulls and cormorants flying around. Puffins were already nesting on the grassy slopes of the rock but couldn’t be seen. As we walked back to our parking spot the fog was already coming in over the water.

Here are some pictures of the beautiful coastline.