The Oregon Coast

On a visit to the Northwest two years ago, my husband and I came to Washington State to explore the coast. Since then, we've been wanting to go back.

If you've been reading the blog, you'll know that we've really been itching to get out of Seattle to go explore the coast again; especially now that we've settled in to life here in the Northwest.

Since we've already visited the Washington coast, we thought we'd go down south to explore Oregon for our next trip, and all our waiting finally came to an end last weekend.

With no plans and great weather in the forecast, we packed up our bags, filled up the gas tank and navigated our way to Cannon Beach, for a fun-filled weekend on the coast!

After a few short hours in the car, traveling through evergreens and passing by Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens, we arrived at Cannon Beach.

We were instantly met with stunning views of Haystack Rock- a well-known landmark on the Oregon Coast, famous for being featured in "The Goonies."

We got out of the car to stretch and Olive immediately ran down the beach to play in the water.

She was a little stunned by the ferocity of the waves on the coast, compared to the ones we get in Seattle on the Puget Sound. But nonetheless, she had a great time playing football and fetch with her Dad.

Although we had only spent an hour there at the time, we instantly fell in love with Cannon Beach. It is easily accessible, surrounded by the most beautiful scenery, and is also one of the most pet-friendly areas in the region. Dogs can roam off-leash if their families are near by, so we were happy to let Olive explore and see her play with other families and their dogs.

After a whole day spent at the beach, we were glad to go back to our room to rest, and were surprised to find that a "Welcome!" basket had been left for Olive in our room. It was filled with special dog towels, linens, bowls and treats, which she was the most happy about, and we were happy that we had found such a pet-friendly inn at such a beautiful location.

Luckily, we had a room with a balcony that overlooked the water, so we were able to see a beautiful sunset and then a great sunrise over Haystack Rock.

Afterwards, we went to do some more exploring on the coast.

While we were there, we had heard about a shipwreck at a state park that was not too far off the road back to Seattle, so we decided to re-route and navigate to Fort Stevens to check it out. 

According to legend, the Peter Iredale was en route to Portland, Oregon when mist, high seas and wind caused it to become shipwrecked on October 25, 1906. It was remarkable to us that there was still so much left of the wreck today, and we were happy to have time to explore it, thanks to the low-tide.

After that, we were all ready to come home to Seattle to recharge and start planning our next adventure.

Be sure to stay tuned for our next exploration!