Cannon Beach, Oregon

Haystack Rock and the Needles

Friday, July 20th, 2012  Cannon  Beach, Oregon

We all slept well that night but I was awoken during the night by a sound I did not want to hear.....rain!!!  We did stay dry in the tent (which was a blessing) but the rain was still there when we woke up.  Did the "rain" not get the message that this was our day at the beach?????  I do know that this is "typical" Northwest weather but we would have been satisfied with not experiencing this aspect.



A soggy breakfast for sure!

Well, we got up, got dressed, got out the rain ponchos and had breakfast...all in the rain :(  Not knowing what else to do, we put our best faces on and headed to the beach.  The one thing the kids wanted to do was to make a sandcastle and pretty much roll around in the sand and water.



our little jellyfish flying up the beach.



Chris wading in a tidal pool.



They loved digging in the sand.

 

 We parked a bit North of Haystack Rock so had a wonderful walk up down the beach in the rain, wind (so strong it ripped Jonathan's hood off his poncho) and wind-swept sand.  Annika loved pretending she was flying with her poncho (you couldn't do that as well in nice weather :)  The other blessing of the weather was that there were no other people at Haystack Rock at this time!  It was high tide so we could not get real close but the kids did have fun digging in the sand and getting more wet than I would have liked.  Jonathan and Chris dug a large "hot tub" but they said the "heater" was not working today :)

This is the best clam-chowder in the
world.

We were on the beach for over an hour before we became "uncomfortably" cold and the word "hypothermia" was being used.  It had stopped raining mostly but we were wet so we walked back into town where we changed into dry clothes and set off for explore the stores.  We did find some fun souvenirs (postcards and pastel-colored shells for Annika).  Then we had lunch at the Driftwood Restaurant.   We were still chilly and hungry and  the food was very tasty.  In fact, Josh and I think they have the BEST Clam Chowder in the world.  It was really very good.  We were all refreshed and decided to drive to the next town Seaside to do some food shopping and Dave was looking for some hiking boots to climb Mt. Rainier.



Annika checking out a starfish



We found a Thrift Store where we found boots for Dave and Jonathan. The boys also found some amazing war medals:  Jonathan get a World War II medal and Chris got a bayonet/ grenade medal.  After getting some food, we headed back to our camp and crashed for a bit before heading back to the beach for low tide.  We headed out again at 6:45pm and we were not disappointed.  The tide was low and a whole new world was revealed for us to enjoy.

A whole new world.

We saw incredible starfish, some of the largest that we have ever seen.  Dave said they were well over a foot in diameter and so thick- I would not want to arm wrestle with them.  There were incredible pink and lime green sea anemones, hermit crabs, mussels, seagulls and puffins that live on Haystack Rock.

Haystack Rock at low tide.

As a child, we would come here for vacations while also visiting my grandparents who live in Washington. This is one of my favorite places and I was so excited to show the kids this place.

God has made amazing life the the
seas.

 I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed today about the weather but it did turn out OK and the kids still loved seeing all the wildlife.  I think as a child, that we could touch the starfish which we could not do now...but I am thankful that there is still this special place that we could bring our kids to.



Exploring the tidal pools



Some of the favorite things for the kids at the tidal pools were the lime green anemones and large starfish!  We had lots of fun exploring here.  We also could see a cave that went into Haystack Rock on the side which I had never seen before.  We could not get there due to the waves crashing all around it but it had to be VERY cool in there.

When we were done exploring, we headed back to our campground to make a fire, eat dinner and get some warm showers.  We had hot dogs (again), cooked some New York strip and sourdough bread...mmmm, does not get much better than that for camping.  Thankfully, it was not really raining on us now, just more of a "mist".  Kinda like at Sea World where you can run through a "mist" to cool off, except that we did not need to cool off now.  Dave did capture this beautiful picture of a rainbow over our tent...I guess you can't have rainbows without some rain, right??:)

Our night ended up with more yummy smores and we were thankful to fall into dry sleeping bags.  Good night Cannon Beach!