Three Capes and Some Tuna!!

Before taking a drive on the coast, Patty and I drove back Hwy 101 to a roadside vegetable stand, looking for Marionberries.  I hoped to find enough to freeze for later endeavors making jam.  We found  some great peaches and other fruit, but no Marionberries.  To ease my disappointment, we hit the quilt store in Tillamook.  What a treasure The Fabric Patch is, along with it's most friendly staff!!

That out of the way, Dan, Patty and I drove up Three Cape Drive.  In the near future, we will be staying at Thousand Trails Pacific City.  Dan thought it might be a good idea to check it out first.  Good thing we did, on my part anyway.  The highway to get there is a bad one ... almost like being in Canada.  Slow going is the word once you are off Hwy 101.  I almost cracked my head on the ceiling as we bounced over one in the car that would be a killer dish breaker in the RV.

Once there, we discovered a new entrance, got a pass and drove in.  It amazes me how big, yet how small these parks are.  There's not much room to drive around, and the park maps always get me confused.  We marked several "TV" sites for future reference and took off North up the coast towards Netarts Bay.

The first Cape is Kiwanda ... much further south than we were interested in going.  The second, Cape Lookout.  If you want to visit this one, bring water, snacks, good hiking shoes (rubber boots, it's muddy), sleeping bag, tent and dinner for a week!!  Just kidding ... but it is almost a two mile trek no matter which trail you take.  I'm sure it's beautiful, but back-country trekking isn't on Patty and Dan's agenda, so we kept heading North.

Just before the "scenic viewpoint" is a pullout big enough for 3 or 4 cars.  Stop here!!  The view of the Pacific Ocean and State Park is amazing from here, with Netarts Bay at the top right.  You can't see any of this from the "viewpoint" parking lot.

The last of the three Capes is Cape Meares with it's beautiful lighthouse.  There are two trails down to the tip of the cliff where it resides.  The left trail has beautiful views like this one of Short Beach.

The second trail on the right goes through a canopy of pine trees directly to the lighthouse.  You can see the prisms distinctly at this level.  The trail to the left leads to the bottom.  Keep in mind that both of these trails are DOWNHILL!!  It takes five minutes to walk in, twenty minutes to walk out!!

This is the shortest lighthouse on the Oregon Coast.  When the Coast Guard decided to demolish the building, protests brought about the donation to the County, where it was restored and opened to the public.  In 2010 it was badly vandalized by absolute idiots who shot up the lens and damaged the building as well as landscaping.  You can still see bullet holes and broken glass in the lens itself, made in 1888 in France.  Fortunately it remains open to the public!!

If you wish to tour inside any of the lighthouses, go VERY early in the morning.  Every tour has been full to the end of the day and we never had the opportunity to look around.  One of the girls at Cape Meares, did let me in to this room for a picture of the handrail shadows.  Although most of the lighthouses have ghost sightings, this one has none!!  Darn ... I was hoping for a picture!!!

Headed back to the parking lot, since it is so steep, they have placed benches with reading material along the way.  This lighthouse area is home to the Peregrine Falcon whose population was devastated by DDT to near extinction.  On a previous trip, Patty and Dan saw several flying here.  The only thing we saw were three sealions that one guy insisted was a whale.  

Always looking for the weird and wonderful to photograph ... okay the weird ... this farthest rock looked like a grimacing face in need of some dental work.  Hmmm maybe it's me that's weird.  Anyway, the large rock formation in the front is a bird rookery like most of the islands along the coast.

Dinner at a recommended Fish Restaurant across from the cheese factory, was excellent.  Please just disregard the unkempt owner/cook with his pants hanging below his butt and his rather abrupt attitude.  Apparently earlier in the day when Tom and Barbara were there, he had to fire his only help with a full house of hungry customers.  The halibut and chips at $14.50 was excellent ... just order, grab a water from the ice chest and go sit.  It will be delivered to your table.  It being the end of the day, he received his newest order of fish ... fresh tuna!!

Back at the rig, Jessie was snuggling with her newest friend ... Tok Two!  In our remaining day here at the Elks Park, I hope to tour the Latimer Quilt and Textile Museum where I can watch spinning in action ... maybe even set up a lesson or two!!