Random Rambler: Oregon Coast 2013 Days 4 and 5

Days 1 and 2: The drive through Idaho, Multnomah Falls, and Arrival at the beach.

Days 2 and 3: Various Nearby Hikes, Cape Perpetua.

Day 4: Wednesday

I wanted to hit another hike in today. The one I decided upon the directions were a little iffy. We drove back and forth in and out of town (it was supposedly located on the south end of town) and we just never found it. We eventually discovered the hiking guide used a business as a turn point, that has since either been renamed or has gone defunct. Yea… if when providing directions to a hike you could use street addresses vs changing landmarks, that’d be great.

In our attempts to locate it we found this random beach in Siletz Bay. I forget what it was called.

Pretty flowers here though.

So for my 2nd choice was a trails called The Friends Of The Wildwoods Trail.

The directions sent us towards West Devils Lake Road and near mile marker 2. Well we found West Devils Lake road, and at mile marker 1 was this sign.

Typo? or alternate trail?

Looks easy enough that Ma could join us.

Gorgeous little trail.

Look at the little pinecones!

Again, marked moderately difficult, but I think it might be due to the roots in the trail. Other than watching your step it was an easy hike.

Trail and ferns.

Pretty forest.

Random spring.

Just gorgeous!

Nice little bridge over a muddy section.

This section of the trail was particularly root filled.

I just love the woods out here.

View above.

And the trail just lets out in a random neighborhood.

Well that was just another pretty walk in the woods. Not much to it but it was gorgeous.

Back at the hotel room. Cool clouds hanging over the ocean.

It felt warmer today, with no breeze so we decided to try playing in the ocean again.

Agnes Creek

Ocean waves.

I don’t know if you can see it but I noticed this shelf not too far out.

Every time I find a shell with a barnacle on it, it’s still alive. Poop.

Playing in the ocean.

Various footprints.

I finally put the camera away so I could play in the ocean as well. I was proud of both of us we both didn’t like to get in too deep but we made it a little over waist deep today.

After that we decided to go have dinner. The family had gone a little earlier than we wanted to so we started looking around for places to eat. What we ended up finding is my new favorite place to eat, and it completely blew Pier 101 out of the water in fact they didn’t even get a visit from us this year I was so pleased with the new place.

Kyllo’s Is a beautiful restaurant on the beach next to the D River. (worlds shortest by the way) Not only is it beautiful on the outside it is on the inside as well. In fact I started worrying what we may have gotten ourselves into price wise.

View from our table.

Between the decor, the atmosphere and the service I would expect this to be a $50 dollar a plate restaurant. However it was closer to high 20’s. A little more than I normally like to spend, but it was definitely worth it. The clams were better than any other place I have had them before. I highly recommend it.

Made it back just in time to catch the sunset. This is more what I am used to seeing when we are here. There is always a bank of clouds in the way.

Later, we decided it was calm enough that we could finally do a fire on the beach. It was awesome! There really is just something special about enjoying a camp fire while listening to the ocean.

After that I had to scramble up those 175 steps in the dark. I almost didn’t come down because of my heights issue, and knowing I would have to come back up in the dark. But I did it, and I am very glad I did.

So between that, and getting deeper into the ocean than ever before today, we did really good with conquering some of of stupid little irrational fears today. Win!

Moon reflection from the top of the stairs.

With our little fire. (my brothers were still with it, we didn’t just leave a fire burning. We would never do that.)

All in all today was another wonderful day on the coast!

Day 5: Thursday.

Today is our last full day on the coast.

Woke up to a beautiful day out.

We had run out of breakfast supplies so we decided to give Pig N Pancake a go. The food was good, but the service sucked. So, we probably will not return.

The we drove north towards Tillamook and we finally did the Munson Creek Falls trail. Every time we drove to Tillamook I would see the sign for it and say hey we should check that out! and for one reason or another we never did it so with some free time today I decided we should go do that one.

It’s about 7 miles south of Tillamook, and 1.5 miles off of the main highway and about half of that is unpaved road. After that it is about a quarter of a mile hike to get to it.

At least the drive in is pretty. (DBP)

And you cross a couple of streams (or 1 meandering one) (DBP)

Yup 1/4 mile.

Pretty trail already.

Pretty moss and vegetation

And we hit the creek.

Which is nice and clear.

Gorgeous!

The railing is really unnecessary as it isn’t that steep, but this does signify the steeper section of the trail.

Pretty white, slightly damaged butterfly.

More pretty forest.

I knew this was a tall waterfall at 319 feet, and yet when I rounded the corner and saw this there was an inadvertent “Holy crap!” This thing is huge! At about half the height of Multnomah Falls it definitely is not the tallest waterfall I have seen, but it is the tallest in the coastal region of Oregon.

There are still some pretties before the main view point.

This is really an amazing waterfall and definitely worth the small side trip to do.

This was as close as we could get as the trail was closed. I don’t know why it was closed, but I am sure it was for a good reason and was not willing to receive a fine to find out why.

Pretty old tree.

Mossy log.

Back down the trail is this pretty oasis.

I love how dead logs look so much more alive here.

Gorgeous gorgeous forest!

White butterfly.

Log cave.

Munson Creek.

The drive out. (DBP)

Another river that I cannot recall the name of. (DBP)

We stopped by Neskowin in hopes of seeing the petrified stumps. However it is a long walk out to the beach and we had been running Ma ragged and didn’t want to drag her along the beach for who know how long. So we continued back to town and checked out the antique mall.

We tried to hit the crap shops, but apparently the crap shops (souvenir stores) all close at 5 in Lincoln City. Weird, most crap stores stay open late, and I would assume a beach city would stay open even later as people want to play on the beach during the day and may want to go shopping at night.. I guess not here.

After that we decided to get dinner. We stopped by Humble Pie Pizzeria. After placing our order we were informed of a 45 minute wait. Well, crap we already paid so I guess we’ll hang out. It was a nice little local hang out, and they let you write on the walls. The pizza was good, but 45 minutes was a long time. However we did hit during dinner rush and they are a small ma and pop shop so no hard feelings I guess.