The Pacific coast to the south: Cannon Beach, the Half Hour Cheese & Lincoln Beach

Monday 25.06.

We leave a little after 10 and first head southwest of Portland to the wine region. We buy lots of raspberries, cherries, etc. at the fruit stand at „Schlichting“ and then drive around on remote country roads.

The sky is completely overcast and it looks like rain at times. It won't be more than 16°C.

We drive through the Willamette Valley, where mostly Pinot Noir is grown. The towns here have names like Dundee or Newburg, with Scottish and Scandinavian founders, two nations that are not really famous for wine growing. But Bergström Winery, Scott Paul Winery, Anderson Winery testify to the origin of the winemakers. something like Hip Chicks Do Winery is probably a more recent establishment...

Our attempts to do a wine tasting at a winery fail, as they are either possible but so far away from the highway that they can only be reached on unpaved roads, and the detour and loss of insurance coverage for the car on these roads are not worth it. So we soon turn north and meet the Highway 26, which takes us directly west to the Pacific.

We reach Cannon Beach, where the Lewis & Clark Trail ends. In Fort Chatsop, the guys wintered back then. A little north of Cannon Beach is Seaside, where they got their salt for the return journey to St. Louis.

On the way to Cannon Beach we passed the coastal mountains with a lot of rain, but unfortunately it doesn't really stop when we make two photo stops in the Ecola State Park.

Summer in Oregon

Sometimes we took beautiful beach pictures from the US 101 in cloud holes, but here we, of course, wanted to photograph the famous „Haystack Rock“. This 72m high rock is considered one of the largest coastal monoliths on Earth, and it gets its name because it resembles a haystack.

Along the coast and at the viewpoint there are also plenty of rest areas with sea lions, but they don't show up either. It's probably the same whether they're on the rock or in the water – it's equally wet. So we stand at the viewpoint with fleece and rain jackets and tell ourselves that it will surely get better soon.

Cannon Beach

In Cannon Beach we walk up and down Main Street and get some ice cream. The sun keeps coming out briefly, but we decide to keep going. We now pass this huge rock more closely, and with a few tireless beach walkers in the foreground, you can better grasp its size. At low tide, you can even reach it on foot and see the nesting sites of the tufted puffins and cormorants up close.

Continuing down the coast, we stop at Rockaway Beach with a huge beach, beautiful dunes, and great houses.

As everywhere, the beach is almost deserted, only a few walkers with dogs are out and about. Thanks to the briefly shining sun, we capture beautiful pictures, and the town also offers lovely motifs with lovingly maintained houses and flower baskets.

One place further, there are heaps of oyster shells up to 3 meters high at the harbor. Apparently, many of these mussels are fished here. We continue until about 8 pm through hardly distinguishable places full of monotony and emptiness. However, along the way we pass Tillamook, the place that gives its name to one of the most famous American cheese dairies.

You can visit the cheese factory, so we take some "education" with us today. Certain types of cheese are produced here mechanically within 30 minutes. Every Alpine farmer's stomach probably turns when they hear that. Here, quark is compressed at this speed and the cheese is ready. Now we know what we're buying in every supermarket... We can see the production hall of this half-hour cheese from above.

Despite the newly acquired knowledge, we continue driving south, and the journey to Lincoln City takes quite a while because the speed limit is only 55 mph. We get some provisions for the next few days at Safeway, because we will stay in Lincoln City for the next 3 days in an apartment. The Coho is our home and we get a room on the second floor without an elevator, but with a balcony with an unobstructed view over endless miles of the Pacific beach.

We have two rooms, so everyone has their own space. Now we have some soup and sit on the balcony with a view of the sun sinking into the sea in front of us – simply wonderful!

The Coho / Lincoln City

There are fire pits down in front of the house above the cliffs, where you can sit in cozy Adirondack chairs with a view of the night sky.

The sea roars, but the wind is quite strong and it's pretty cold, so we don't stay here long at a maximum of 14°C plus a breeze.

Driving distance: 221 miles