Not your mama's ocean either

On the things we did scale, today was a pretty dull day.  But on the sights seen, it's been pretty impressive.  We started the day on Cannon Beach with a walk out to the giant haystack rock.  It was a pretty long walk, talking us about an hour to walk there and back, my hips complained, and I didn't care.

The ocean here is huge.  One can walk forever to get to water.  Then the water is a few inches, and you can wade in that other 400 yards.  The breaks are yet another few hundred yards further out still.  The beach goes on forever.  The horizon between distance and haze is also forever.  One has the sense that it is all just mind blowing vast.  But with all this, the sand is hard and far more easily walked upon.  The water too, b/c it's not exactly surf, makes amazing patterns and forms deep tidal pools in the middle of the beach.

Despite the water being cold enough that they post hypothermia warnings, we did semi wade again.  There were snails traveling in the pools that I had to see, and tiny sea monkey shrimp swimming around like tadpoles.  By the big rocks there were sea anemone or coral like things.  And Puffins!  We saw them flying about.

It was late morning before we hit the road. Traveling today down to Newport, we stopped at a lot of scenic vistas.  What can I say, it really does look like it does in  media.  Rock cliffs sheered down to ocean.  Small twisty roads that go straight up on one side and peek out to show massive miles of hard sand and surf with large haystack rocks sticking out of beach and shore.

We did make a couple of stops though.  The Tillamook Cheese factory.  Some of you may remember the Turkey Hill Experience from the around the block blog.  That was better, but same in principle.  A window looking down at the packing of cheese, ice cream for sale...  generally not that existing.  And if you think about what you see too much, you'd never eat prepackaged food, in this case cheese.  But not far down the road from this was the Latimire Textile Center. 

This was a very cool, but tiny place.  Located on a side road, among houses, and a pen with horse, goats and a lama out front the building used to be  a school house.  It was more or less three rooms.,  One in which children were having an art class, learning to sew.  A second room was filled with looms, in which they held weaving classes and a third had a small but incredible quilt display,  It was of quilts that look as good or better from the back than the front,  The work was incredible.  And the concept of a place that teaches textile skills as well as displays was very cool.

The area also has a quilt barn project, but here not just the farms participate.  Local businesses do too.  Very odd to see the quilt square on the side of the Taco Time building, but I'm glad to see the involvement and the support of 'textile arts.'

We also stopped to check out the bay in which they shot One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest.  Weirdly, it seemed vaguely familiar.  I think this might have been my imagination, still it was gorgeous.

Tonight, we even had a meal in which they claimed the pasta would have crab on it...and it did!  For us who come from the land where people say crab and what they mean is that horrid imitation stuff and not much of it at that, you will understand the surprise and pleasure at actually having real crab and it being plentiful.