So off to the coast we go! Unfortunately the best, fastest way from Mt. Hood to Seaside (the town) is straight through Portland. City Centre, right this way! Just great. Every overpass has two or three underpasses and every underpass is tangled up in an overpass. Good thing for TomTom! The GSP was chatting up a storm and we were blindly following it.
As we were making our way to the historic 101, I noticed on google maps a significant short cut. Now normally I just listen to TomTom, but what does it know?! I noticed that highway 53 would take us straight into Nehalem, where we were planning on spending the night. Let’s take it! What a Mistake! This would be a perfect road for Darren and his speed bike, but it was a very windy and time consuming, so a long way for the truck and trailer. They need to invent TomTom, the RVers addition, for the crazy folks that think they can go down any road that looks like a shortcut.
Finally we made it to Nehalem Bay State Park. From google maps it looked like a beach front destination, and we were ready to see the ocean. Unfortunately, no ocean view from our campsite; sand dune obstruction. After dropping our trailer, we took the path to the beach, over the dunes, and there was the ocean. Maybe not such a big deal for some, but we are from Saskatchewan! The ocean looked inviting, so even though we weren’t beach ready, we had to at least get our feet wet.
After splashing around in the waves and taking a few pictures we were ready for some good Northwestern cuisine. We headed north for a place called Arch Cape Inn which had great reviews, but when we arrived, there was nobody to be found. We headed further north to Cannon Beach and found a place called Driftwood Restaurant and gave it a try. A neat little family owned and operated business. Amazing food! We had Dungeness crab, shrimp, and beef and more Dungeness crab. There was some potatoes and salad in there some where too. A really neat restaurant; highly recommended.
Tomorrow we head to Newport down the 101. More ocean views and the Oregon Aquarium to come!
