Oregon & Washington – such a beautiful coastline! – Lynn and Corrine's North American Tour

Carrying on down highway 101 to our next campsite, Sunset Bay State Park in Coos Bay. On route we took advantage of the many pullouts to visit a few sites while passing by.

**Got all set up in our campsite, then went out exploring**

**Found this beautiful cove/beach right across the road from the campsite**

**and noticed this place on the drive by**

**it had this paved path that went all along the ocean cliffs**

**There were these very interesting knobs or something on the rock**s …

**and here again … not sure what they were, but very odd**

**There were these Gardens in the Park and it was free!**

**Maybe it’s only free in March before most of the blooming starts**

**Regardless we certainly enjoyed a walkabout through here**

**We first saw one of these **Monkey Puzzle Tree**s at Butchart Gardens – we totally want one of these for the farm!**

We started noticing a few areas where there were caution signs and road cones … it seemed like the road had ‘sunk’ or something in these areas 😬

😳 **This spot was especially concerning … I might have been holding my breath going through here** 🫣

You really need to heed the speed limit signs …

**Seems like this guy did not … luckily he didn’t land on someone coming towards him** **in the other lane** **… like us if we’d have arrived there a few minutes earlier**

Lookit the guy in the orange t-shirt … we assumed he must have been the driver. It looks like he might be saying something like … *“so I just don’t know what happened guys … all of a sudden I was climbing out the window”* 🙄

Next day we ventured north a little further to Beachside State Park in Yachats (between Florence and Newport) … a good home location to visit the few things we had on our list for this area – Devils Churn, Thors Well, & Sprouting Horn all south of our campsite, then the Devils Punchbowl north of our campsite just above Florence

First stop – The Devils Churn … I got soaked! 😱 🌊 😄

**We timed it to arrive at all these places at high tide for the best show!**

Lynn just happened to capture the moment I got soaked!

Next stop – Thors Well

Next stop – Sprouting Horn

Some crazy timing that the water shot up through the hole just when I was taking this picture of the sign! 🤓

The last stop was at The Devils Punchbowl 40 minutes north of our campsite just through Newport. Since we had to be going right through Newport we re-visited a roadside seafood place we found in 2016 that we’ve been calling the Crab Shack … it was just as amazing as we remembered it being! 😋 but the name of it is actually South Beach Fish Market (although there’s no sign anywhere that says this … we just noticed it on our receipt). Anyways we wanted to make sure and mention this place for anyone that may be travelling through Newport – it’s right on highway 101 on the south end of Newport.

**This is why we called it the ‘Crab Shack’** 😂 **Don’t let the junky looking exterior deter you, the food is delish!!**

Moving along the next day toward Astoria we made a few re-visit stops – Tillamook Creamery, Rockaway Beach, Seaside

**The last time we were in Tillamook the cheese processing wasn’t running, but it was in full swing this day when we stopped**

**… and it was hopping busy when we arrived!**

**There is a 1.5 mile promenade boardwalk along the ocean**

**This Centrepiece is a bronze statue of Lewis and Clark commemorating their 4,000 mile journey**

We arrived at our last stop in Oregon – Fort Stevens State Park near Astoria – another re-do from 2016. Astoria is a beautiful city where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. We were here in 2016 and visited The Columbia Maritime Museum, watched the hordes of loud barking sea lions in the habour, and rode the little trolley down to the Wet Dog Cafe (another amazing food recommendation) … all great things to do, but that we didn’t take the time to re-do on this visit.

This park is a great place to camp. There are miles and miles of beautiful paved bike paths through the forest, and it’s right on the ocean!

Also some great history at the Fort itself

Something we missed in 2016 though, was The Astoria Column so we visited that today. We walked up the 164 step spiral staircase inside this 125 foot concrete column decorated with murals of Astoria’s history

**That’s the Astoria-Megler Bridge in the background there**

**View from the top. Astoria-Megler Bridge on the far right**

We had booked a passing on the Black Ball Ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria the morning of Friday, March 29th. Cameron and Anna gotten engaged since we last saw them a year ago!! 🤗 with the wedding date set for July 5, 2024 ❤️ 🧡 🩷 💙 💚 💜 Anna is beautiful and Godly young woman! An all around gem! We are over the moon excited for them! We will be in Duncan with them to attend Easter services at Bethel Baptist Church where Anna’s Dad is the Pastor, and then spend about a week visiting there before making our way back to the Kootenays!

Continuing down Hwy.101 we crossed the Astoria-Megler Bridge spanning the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington. Claim to fame? It’s the longest continuous-truss bridge in the world! We enjoyed a beautiful drive through the Olympic National Forest to Port Angeles even though it poured rain almost the whole way 💦 💦 💦 … which we decided was quite fitting considering the area 😁