Tillamook, Oregon

From Manzanita we continued on Highway 101 to Tillamook, OR. The driving is incredible, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Steep, severe coastline with huge, statuesque trees that cover every inch of ground, from the beach to the highway. The thick moss growing on the trunks and branches of the trees is especially cool.

Lots of stops along the way, including at an almost deserted beach, with a huge cliff off to the left. Tons and tons of huge grey tree trunks washed up on shore dominate the landscape. Beautiful, solitary, almost eerie visuals. The clouds and light rain add to the aesthetic. The dark grays, dense, almost-intimidating fog, and the solitary quiet are exactly what I imagine Scandinavia to look/feel like.

Next on to Cape Meares and a nearby lighthouse. Approaching sightseeing overload. The Octopus tree, a bizarre, misshapen thing, with 6 or a 8 thick trunks extending from the ground. 46 feet around and over 100 feet high. Cool pictures, even in bad light. The panoramic views from the lighthouse were great, with high cliffs on both sides of the lighthouse and thousands and thousands of birds flying around and sitting on the water. Gusts of cold wind, overcasts skies didn’t take away from the expansiveness of the sky and the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.

Checked in to a motel in Tillamook and then out for a quick bite at a pizza place half a mile from the hotel. Pretty good eats, overly friendly cashier guy, and the only two other customers: broke back Minnesota.

Three trips to Fred Meyer (a local version of Target/Wal-Mart; surprisingly nice) before we could leave town. A snafu with a prescription of mine, and some forgotten items (including big band aids for LVL’s skinned knee). No real big deal, as we have all day to make a six hour drive down the OR coast. If yesterday taught us anything, it’s that beautiful scenery and breathtaking views are around nearly every bend. One key difference between today and yesterday: the sun! It’s finally out, and damn proud of it.

A vaguely depressing, but absolute truth about driving the OR coast: It’s almost impossible to remember specific details (including names) of every stop we make. Some have been mapped out, others impromptu, still others the product of “oh-my-god-did-you-see-that” U-turns. We tried to takes notes, make map notations, but that too is really hard to stick with.

Anyway, here are some highlights, with as much precision as I can muster on the morning after:

From Tillamook, we stayed on Highway 101 and cruised through some beautiful deep green highway, resisting the urge to stop at places like Netarts and Neskowin, despite recommendations to the contrary. Even without the lookout stops, the driving is great. The trees, the sky, and the company are all world class.

One small downer: logging. Though it isn’t the scourge it was in the past, and may be done very responsibly/sustainably, seeing huge trucks hauling dozens of massive logs has struck me as quite sad, and made much worse when just around the next curve is an entire hillside stripped bare. Though I wouldn’t call myself an environmentalist in any real way (I appreciate, I support, but I don’t lobby/picket/campaign/etc), the ugliness and violence of that scene has riled me up a bit.*

We finished “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Very entertaining, fast paced, and well-written. The perfect balance between character (which “Presumed Innocent” may have gone a bit heavy on) and plot (which “I, Alex Cross” emphasized to the exclusion of all else). Started Larson’s second in the series, “Girl Who Played with Fire” immediately.

*Similar, I guess, to how I felt when seeing the pine beetle devastation while driving through the Rockies. Naive comment of the day: The mountains should be covered in healthy, verdant, dark greens, not sickly brown/grays.