From the streets of Portland to the rocky coastline of Oregon, we experienced it all on day 5 of our adventure. From Hotel Vintage we hopped in our rental car and headed Northwest to our first stop of the day – Cannon Beach. Known for its famous landmark, Haystack Rock, this beach town is a darling little stop along Highway 101.
On our way out to the coast, the weather started to pick up so in true Pacific Northwest style it was raining, overcast, and pretty cold by the time we got out to the coast, but nonetheless, it was our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean and it was majestic. Because of the trickery of depth of field in the camera Haystack Rock looks fairly tame – merely a mound along the coast – but up close and in person, it was a mammoth monument. The tide was starting to come in during our time on the beach, but apparently on calm days during low tide, you can walk all the way out to the rock and reports say close to 100 people a year get stranded on the rock when high tide comes sweeping through.
We stayed out dancing in the rain and photographing the monument as long as our camera would allow it then feeling the cold seeping past out ill-planned layers of clothing we ducked back to the car to warm up and plan out our next destination. Determined not to let the weather get us down we headed a few minutes further north to Ecola State Park. If we’re ever back in the area we’d love to go back to the park and explore it more on a sunny day (or at least not a rainy day) because the overlooks we visited were breathtaking even in the pouring rain and low visibility.
Thankfully we got about an hour of no rain, just perfect foggy conditions so we were able to bring out the camera to capture some of the scenery. All in all our day on the coast was a bit soggy but also so much fun to visit the coast on the opposite side of the country – a must do trip if you’re ever on the West Coast!
