Weekend on the Coast

I’m back! Did you miss me? Anthony and I went for a weekend on the coast, Cannon Beach, and Astoria. We had a great time and we were able to experience some new parts of Oregon. We traveled to Cannon Beach to meet up with some of his family and spent a day there. While I was there I visited Coastal Yarns, but I only ended up getting a size 3 ciruclar needle there. I was really interested in the Socks that Rock Yarn that they have, but only a few not so pretty colors were there. I guess it’s been so popular that they can’t keep it in stock. Here are some pictures of the largest Haystack Rock in Oregon. (All images are clickable)

We thought the last one looked like a giant slug. It’s on the south side of Haystack Rock. After Cannon Beach we went camping close to Astoria. We stayed at Fort Stevens State Park. It wasn’t really my type of camping. We had to be in the area with all the RV’s and trailers and all the camping spots were crammed together. There are areas for just tents, but there are only 11 spots. We woke up to rain in the morning, which was very peaceful and explored the Ship Wreck of Peter Iredale.

I found a few older pictures of the wreck if you would like to see what it looks like.

Wreck of Peter Iredale 1923

Wreck of Peter Iredale 1923-54

I got all the links from Oregon Historic Photograph Collection which has some great pictures of old shipwrecks all along the Oregon Coast. There are a few more on that site of the same wreck.

After that we headed up to Astoria and checked out the Astoria Column.

We weren’t in a shopping mood, so we didn’t wander around downtown. It looked really cute though, and like it would have lots of interesting little shops. Another time. After that we headed down Young River Loop and checked out Young River Falls.

It was beautiful. A short, steep hike down to it was well worth the view. We considered camping right there, even though it was not technically allowed, but decided we didn’t want hikers tromping through our campground. We really wanted to find a place that was isolated and private. However, that just wasn’t in the cards for us. We drove toward State Forest area around Jewell, but we couldn’t find any areas that weren’t being logged and weren’t privately owned. So we kept driving down south and ended up finding a small campground with one more spot. We were so tired of looking and wanted a place to sleep no matter what. This campground was a little better than the last, with more space, and more tents around.

We had a great dinner of spaghetti and wine (lots of wine!) I finished knitting this dishrag.

I really liked how this turned out, and am considering making more for gifts. It’s so much nicer than my other dishrags, and yes I’m going to use it to clean dishes.

That night we woke up to rain at 2 in the morning. Now I didn’t explain my tent to you yet. I have a hand-me-down tent that is older than I am. It was my parents first tent and they didn’t need it anymore. I’m not sure if it ever had any sort of rain fly, and I’ve never bought a tarp to put over it. I kept hoping that the rain would just be a short one, but it wasn’t and we finally had to bail our drippy post and seek refuge in the car. We slept the rest of the night in my little car with the seats back. It wasn’t horrible, but next time we go camping we’ll be getting a better tent.

Overall, the trip was a lot of fun, and adventure, but fun. If you know of any good camping spots in Oregon, I would love to know. Next time with a tent that is rain worthy.