Portland to Seaside
Again we skipped breakfast, sleeping late, and we didn’t hang around in Portland. We navigated flawlessly out of the city, and we were soon on among the conifers and mountains of Western Oregon. We stopped for lunch at Camp 18 — a timber cabin built in the 1970s by a keen logging enthusiast, 18 miles from the end of US-26. It’s quite an impressive piece of work, with an enormous log forming the apex of the ceiling, and classy wood carvings adorning the exterior.
I tried to be moderate and ordered a salad, and it turned out to be more than I could eat. The waitress tried to sell us pudding, so we laughed at her.
We set a course for the coast, but got distracted by a sign for the largest sitka spruce in the United States. An oregon heritage tree, not less! At first we were disappointed to find it had been chopped down…
But, it turned out we were looking at the wrong tree. The right tree was really quite big.
We commented on its size, then got back in the car and drove to Seaside, which is by the sea. We had completed our coast to coast drive!
We picked a hotel at random, and were politely informed that this was a timeshare establishment, and you couldn’t just walk in off the street. They gave us a map and a list of motels though, and we were soon in our room at the Hi Tide Resort, with a balcony overlooking the beach.
Our sleeping arrangements secure, we got back in the car and drove South to Cannon Beach, which is where the Road Trip USA version of the Oregon Trail ends. Our Seaside plan was vindicated, since everywhere in Cannon Beach displayed "No Vacancy" signs. We eventually found some parking, walked onto the beach, recognised the rock from The Goonies…
… had a quick paddle (cold!), bought some beach towels (in preparation for swimming later), and went back to Seaside, via a kite shop run by a jovial old hippy who sold me a fun kite shaped like a cartoon cow with a great big cow tail. On entering Seaside there is a "entering tsunami danger zone" sign, and within the town there are tsunami evacuation routes marked. I wonder how long those have been up?
Debbie insisted that the Pacific was a much warmer ocean to swim in than the Atlantic, having seen as much on the Weather Channel, so we took our new beach towels onto the beach by our hotel, and waded in. It was bitterly cold, but I managed to get waist-deep before losing all feeling in my feet. I returned to the towels, while Debbie lasted another 10 minutes or so.
By the time we ventured our for dinner, it had turned really quite cold, but we didn’t have the presence of mind to put on warmer clothes. Seaside is a kind of Pacific Northwest Blackpool, and affords an interesting opportunity to watch blue collar America at play. I saw a man whos t-shirt read "The 2nd amendment: America’s original Homeland Security". I also saw a nubile girl with a vest top featuring a picture of a trailer and the words "Let’s Hook Up".
Seaside is proud of a couple of things. The first is its monument to Lewis and Clark, who finished their journey West here, and stayed for long enough to extract salt to preserve meat for the journey home. I expect we’ll pay that a visit tomorrow. The second is its roundabout. Not a merry-go-round. A roundabout for traffic. Yes.
At Girtle’s Steak and Seafood, Debbie had steak and I had a 3LBS crab (don’t worry — it’s mostly shell). The food was lovely, but the staff were a little overloaded and given the cold outside, the air con was cranked up way too high. I think in this picture the way the bib is tied makes me look as if I have no neck, and makes my head look way too big for my body…
We had to stride home to stay warm. A mist has fallen over the beach, so we can’t see the sea, but people have lit campfires all over the beach and are having fun — which is nice. Us, we’re in our room with the TV on. Debbie’s watching The O.C., but when I finish doing this I’m going to pressure her to find something else.