After visiting Multnomah Falls & Astoria (see my first post here) we headed over to Seaside which is where I booked our hotel. Seaside was a nice little town, not much to it, basically one main street with some shops & restaurants.
The first night we didn't do much but walk around a bit, eat dinner & check out the beach. We ate at PigN Pancake which didn't look like much but their pancakes were really good!
The next day we got to play on the beach which was huge...although the water was super cold. So we mostly hung out in the sand and made sandcastles. My older 2 kids did go & play around in the water a bit.
I couldn't go to the beach without taking Olaf. You know, since he loves all things hot :)
Our 2nd full day we headed over to Ecola State Park. I had read online that it had great views of Cannon Beach & Terrible Tilly lighthouse. I'm so glad we made the pitstop there because the views were absolutely beautiful.
I got a decent shot of Terrible Tilly lighthouse with my zoom lens.
My kids commented that it'd be so cool if they had tours over there. I agree!!
The first beach down there is Crescent beach & then beyond that is Cannon Beach.
You can see Haystack Rock way off in the distance.
I took the opportunity to get some good pics of all of us & the kids.
Christmas cards - check!
It didn't matter to me that we all didn't match. It didn't matter that my kids weren't wearing "nice" outfits. Whatever. I got some great shots of my kids & that's all that matters in my book!
After checking out the view we went down to Indian Beach which was a nice little beach. You had to walk down this little gravel path & then some stairs. We also got to see some little creatures in among the rocks down at the beach.
And check out what one of the kids (not my kids) "found" on the beach! And yes, he put her back (he said it was a girl, I have no idea!)
Then we came back up from the beach to have lunch. Check out some of our visitors...
They were so funny, when we would get distracted by one bird, the other one would try & inch in closer!
We also found some really pretty caterpillars crawling on some flowers.
I looked them up when I got home & from what I can find I believe these were Cinnabar moths. Funny how they actually turn into a black & red moth...pretty interesting!
Next up was Cannon Beach. If this looks familiar yes, this is another spot that The Goonies was filmed. Haystack Rock was pretty cool. Unfortunately, we missed out on heading out there where I guess they have people that show you the different "flora & fauna" living out there. Next time!
Cannon Beach was pretty neat because it had what seemed like little streams on the beach which I'm guessing were formed when the tide comes in and out. It was perfect because since they were more shallow my little one could splash around in them and it wasn't as cold as the ocean.
The only thing I didn't really like about this beach is that there wasn't any bathrooms close by. I'm talking, back up the stairs from the beach and down 3 blocks from the beach. Seriously, I've had 3 kids and I have Crohn's...I don't like bathrooms being that far away! I think the key to staying at Cannon Beach is renting a house/condo/hotel right on the beach for sure.
However, I did love the town & that there were more shops & restaurants and the town was very quaint. We noticed it was also a lot more crowded. We stopped in a candy shop where you could see them making the taffy. Pretty cool!
We will definitely check out Cannon Beach again when we have more time to check everything out.
So that was our mini-vacation to the Oregon coast! I'm hoping next time we can stay a few days longer so that we don't feel as rushed to see everything. And I would love to catch a sunrise or sunset photo on the beach! I'm also hoping maybe next year we can venture further south to Rockaway Beach or Newport. So much to explore!!
