Oregon Day 1: Cannon Beach

We got into Portland on Tuesday night pretty late, especially for us on east coast time, so we got a quick hotel room for the night.  Kellan did NOT sleep well this first night.  He was not happy about having to sleep in his Pack N' Play and he kept waking up crying.  Then he finally woke up around 5:30 a.m. and would not hear of going back to sleep.  I guess it turned out to be a blessing in disguise because we were all bathed, dressed, the rental car repacked, breakfast eaten, and on the road before 8:00 a.m. headed to the coast. 

 

Our first destination was Cannon Beach, which is known for the famous Haystack Rock.  If you look closely in the pictures you can see how massive these rocks are by how tiny the people are at the base of the rocks.  We got there at a perfect time because the tide was out so we could walk close up to them.

 

We borrowed my sister's back pack carrier and it was extremely useful!  If it wasn't for this thing it would have been a lot more difficult to lug this 25 pound baby around.  Thankfully he loved being in it and would just burst into fits of giggles every time Michael started to walk.

 The Oregon coast was CHILLY.  We knew it was going to be but it was still a shock when we got there.  OK it was only a shock for me...Michael didn't think it was that cold.  I love weather with a chill to the air but I definitely have to dress for it.  To me, temperatures in the 50's are cold.  We brought this little sweater hoodie for Kellan that was a hand-me-down from my nephew Owen.  Kellan looked so adorable in it and he did a great job keeping his hood on.  He never minded the cold either, I guess he takes after his dad.

A nice couple from Southern California took our picture :)

When we drove into Cannon Beach we went straight to the rocks so later we went back to the downtown area for lunch and a little shopping.  This is the most adorable little town and I could not get over all of the beautiful flowers and plants the restaurants and shops keep around the outside of their buildings.  I saw some of the most beautiful hydrangea bushes that I had ever seen with the most unique colors.  I did not do a good job of capturing these gorgeous flowers when I look back at my pictures.  It was so hard to get good pictures with all of the cars parked on the street.  The photos we took do not do the town justice...it was so cute and obvious that the people that live and work there take an enormous amount of pride in the appearance of their town.

We had lunch at Morris' Fireside Restaurant.

 

 

Kellan doing his usual entertainment with a straw...

Michael and I shared a bowl of oyster stew

 

I got an avocado and shrimp sandwich with a fruit and vegetable salad

 

And Michael got the same salad with the French dip...and those are Kellan's sweet potato crackers peeking in at the top left corner...thank goodness for those things...they kept his mouth full for at least a little while

 

 

 

After lunch and window shopping we headed to Ecola State Park.  We drove up a mountain for several miles through a very lush forest to get to this viewpoint of the ocean.



The trees were HUGE and some of them were growing this really fuzzy moss.  There were also really, really big ferns that covered the forest floor.

 After we left Ecola we headed south down the Oregon coast to see what we could see :)  I'll post all about the rest of Day 1 tomorrow...we just saw too much and took too many pictures to squeeze it all into one post!  I told you I'm going to be blogging about this trip until Christmas!