The fog on the road out of Bayocean Provincial Park was quite picturesque
After I awoke in my hotel room, I had an ambitious day ahead.
Work, yes. But I also wanted to see some natural beauty, enjoy some culinary treats, and visit one of Oregon’s most famous attractions.
Today was the day I was going to visit both Cannon Beach and the Tilamook Creamery.
This element did not display properly. Do you have JavaScript enabled?
Bayocean Peninsula Park
Awakening in Netarts, I put in a few hours of work, and then decided to take a break.
I wanted to visit Cape Meares State Park, which looked like a really beautiful spot, but the road was closed. The detour would have been much longer than I wanted.
Bayocean was the site of a fledging seaside resort town at the turn of the century, but you wouldn’t know that unless you saw the commemorative sign. Every trace of the place is gone, the victim of a few catastrophically wrong decisions.
Basically, some developers built a luxury seaside town on an unstable sand spit. To calm the waters, they decided to build one jetty instead of the two that were recommended. In the years that followed, the new currents literally washed away the foundations of the town. At present day no trace is left on the surface, though a second jetty was eventually constructed, helping to restore the accumulation of sand.
Kristian Foden-Vencil and Jule Gilfillan wrote a fantastic article on the place for Oregon Public Broadcasting. It is incredibly engaging and far beyond the scope of what I can write in this post, so I highly encourage you to give it a read.
Building on sand was not a concern back then. East coast towns like Atlantic City had been built on sand, and it was only seven feet above sea level.
Also, it probably wouldn’t have occurred to the Potters to ask the local tribes about the history of the land. But if the Potters had, they would have learned parts of the spit had a habit of being swept away and reappearing.
I walked around part of the loop here, seeing the commemorative sign for the old town center. It was hard to imagine that anyone had lived here. It was difficult to picture “the town that fell into the sea.”
Hitting the beach via a well-trodden path through dunegrass.open_in_fullinfomap
Back on mainland, I drove through Tilamook on my way to the creamery. I stopped at a coffee shop where I drank a glass of coffee and joined a meeting. A chalkboard was host to patrons’ new years resolutions, an eclectic mixture that varied from “walking with Christ more” to better practicing anti-racism.
(This was the only location where I consumed any food/beverage indoors without a mask during this trip, remaining quite far from any patrons. But, as such, it remains the most probable place where I could have contracted a certain disease…)
After my meeting, I made my way to the creamery. Upper floor windows overlooked conveyer belts where cheese was processed in enormous chunks. It was cool to look at, but probably not worth going too far out of the way to see.
Downstairs, I did not feel compelled to buy Tilamook Creamery merch in the giftshop, but I was eager to have some lunch. The food was nothing to write home about; even the fried cheese curds were underwhelming. But, the milkshake I got (half huckleberry, half marionberry pie) was truly, truly, excellent and worth seeking out.
There was a nice outdoor patio area, and it was sunny and warm enough for an outdoor meal.
Onwards and Upwards
I continued my way up the coast, stopping by Nehalem Bay State Park, and a few overlooks on my way to the town of Cannon Beach. I checked into my accomodations, got back to work, and hit the sidewalk before the sun set.
Obviously, as any photographer worth their salt would, I stopped working and headed to Cannon Beach when the sun got low. I walked along the beach from my motel on the outskirts of town. My goal was to get some nice pictures of the beach & Haystack Rock and enjoy the sights while I was at it.
I got some water in my boots, and trudged back through town, stopping to pick up some incredibly mediocre pizza. (Yes, I hadn’t eaten dinner and was quite hungry.)
As I walked through the town of Cannon Beach, the closed souvenir shops and art galleries did not speak to me, and I decided I would rather leave the place behind sooner than later the next morning.
