Travelogues
2019 Oregon Trip

Tuesday, June 25

Nehalem

We moved to the Cannon Beach area today. This is our favorite area along the Oregon Coast. We normally stay at Cannon Beach RV, but they were already full when I checked back in October. I guess we're not the only ones that prefer them.

We're camping at Nehalem State Beach about 20 miles south of Cannon Beach. That means a lot of extra driving and inconvenience, but it's also half the cost. We have a great campsite with lots of kids from the nearby campsites for entertainment. It appears the new "in" thing for the campgrounds is chalk drawings on the campsite roads and driveways. Kids from 3 to teens spend the day biking, skateboarding, and scooter riding up and down the campground road in front of us. We watched one little girl learn to ride her bike and have the training wheels removed during our week at the campground.

Nehalem Campsite

Ecola State Park

We watched the sky throughout the afternoon before deciding to drive up to Ecola State Beach to shoot sunset. Our first stop was Silver Point just south of Cannon Beach. The pines frame Haystack Rock and Cannon Beach from the highway turnout. It's a teaser for what we'll see at the next stops.

Cannon Beach from Silver Point

We continued through Cannon Beach and drove up to Ecola State Park. This is a great place to shoot south toward Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock. But this year our favorite shooting locations were all closed. The main viewpoint below the parking lot that used to include a trail all the way down to the beach was closed due to erosion and stability concerns. Even worse, the trail out to Ecola Point was also closed due to erosion. Several groups ignored the signs and fencing, but we settled for shooting south from a small picnic area. In fact, we stood on top of the tables to get enough height above the cliff-side vegetation. It was a gorgeous evening, and we felt like we had the area mostly to ourselves.

Ecola State Park

After we shot Cannon Beach, we walked over to the viewpoint to the west to shoot "Terrible Tilly." Tilly is the nickname for the Tillamook Lighthouse that is on a tiny island a mile offshore. The lighthouse was built in 1881. Terrible Tilly quickly earned her name when the chief mason who was surveying the island before beginning construction was washed out to sea and never seen again. After four months of construction, a storm struck Tilly with huge waves that swept away the worker's tools, provisions, and water tank. The crew survived, but they had to wait two weeks to get food, clothing and supplies. There are photographs showing waves crashing 100 feet over the top of the lighthouse. The danger and difficulty of maintaining the lighthouse caused Tilly to be de-commissioned in 1957. For a time, Tilly was used to store cremated human remains for the Eternity at Sea Columbarium. Tilly has certainly had a colorful history.

Terrible Tilly Tilly Sunset

We watched the sun set into the clouds beside Tilly and then walked back up the hill to the parking lot. By the time we got back to camp and made dinner, it was after 10:00. Sunset at 9:10 makes for long days.