2012/05 Western USA trip - Cape Lookout |
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Sunday May 20th
Sunday was going to be a travel day, taking us down the coast into Oregon, maybe camping somewhere around Newport. A fine drizzle started as we left 
Forks, but we took a side trip to visit the giant cedar tree, this time the one that I remembered. Its size isn’t as impressive as its convoluted shapes and cavities, really hard to photograph though as it’s dark under the branches.
I’d intended stopping at Kalaloch, but there would have been little to see from the cliffs, just clouds and rain. The road south from there is mostly inland from the coast, just a ribbon through the forest, not much to look at. We stopped for lunch overlooking Willapa Bay but the weather wasn’t improving. We drove a short way along the north shore of the Columbia River and stopped at the Dismal Niche rest area. It was named by the Lewis and Clark expedition when they were sheltering there from a winter storm back in 1805.
We crossed the massive bridge across the Columbia River to Astoria and the state of Oregon, and then another long bridge across Youngs Bay. The towns south of Astoria looked to be typical seaside-tacky, but Cannon Beach might be worth a future trip on a dry day. The few bits of countryside were ablaze with the yellow flowers of great stands of invasive broom, as big a problem there as it is on Vancouver Island. The roads were busy with Sunday traffic from nearby Portland and Sandie was now driving through wet fog, so we weren’t getting as far as we’d hoped. We were in Tillamook, and had just passed the famous cheese factory.
We pulled into Cape Lookout state park, a classic Oregon sandy beach between to great volcanic capes, the other being Cape Meares. It was too murky though to see either cape in detail. By the time we’d backed the trailer into a good camping spot, the rain was back in force and we postponed any exploring until the next morning.