A Day Trip to Cannon Beach

July 18, 2020

A spur of the moment day trip to the Oregon coast. It's exciting when a spontaneous opportunity presents itself. It makes life enjoyable because you did something that was out of the normal routine. 

It's a 3.5 hour drive to Cannon Beach which is not that far. The day was set to be sunny and, in the 60,'s. 

I believe we were driving across the New Youngs Bay Bridge over Youngs River here. Which connects Astoria to Warrenton Oregon.

We stopped in Seaside at Ruby's Roadside Grill for lunch. Really cool place. Very down to earth.

Riley makes me laugh. Always making funny looking faces. He's silly just like my sister Claudia. 

Cannon Beach is only fifteen minutes from Seaside. It's quite busy during the summer months. It is definitely worth your time to stop and explore it.

A partial view of Ecola State Park. 

At 60 degrees it felt quite good to get some sun. We hung out here for a while watching brave people go into the freezing water. Jacob and Riley also played catch football for a while which I took the opportunity to read for a bit.

Afterwards we walked back to town and stopped at Schwietert's Cones and Candy for some ice cream.

Cannon Beach is aesthetically pleasing to the eye. There are a lot of gorgeous plants, flowers and trees. 

We left Cannon Beach in the late afternoon.

All the beaches along the Oregon Coast are gorgeous. They're so vast. So much sand and I especially love all the rock formations in the water. 

We made it to Portland and stopped at Chicken N Guns for dinner. They have the yummiest grilled chicken and Peruvian aji sauce, which is made of creamy jalapeno, cilantro, garlic, and lime. They call their crispy potatoes "guns", hence the name of their business. Everything was so delicious!

It was definitely a full day. The smell of the ocean air is so clean, calming and healing. It also evokes nostalgia. I love looking out at the ocean, gazing upon the waves as they crash against the shore. How they curl and come undone. But, for me, what's awe-inspiring is walking on the beach when a storm is about to hit. The moodiness of it is what makes the whole scene beautiful. Being at the beach brings me so much pleasure.

It is my hope that Riley will look back at his childhood with much love and excitement for the ocean/beach, nature and all the fun times we've had together on our road trips.

Whenever you experience awesome beauty, absorb it inside yourself. It does

affect your soul. Once there, it lifts your spirits and is alive in you now and as a memory.

(Not so) Scenic Drive to Eastern Washington

May 2, 2020

A cloudy sky in the beginning of May. How cool is that?!

This was our first time visiting Wenatchee. Eastern WA is so different than Western WA. It's flat and dry with an average of 300 days of sunshine. 

There really wasn't much to photograph. No scenic stops but I did enjoy seeing farmland and the cloudy sky gave everything depth. Because of the pandemic this town was like a ghost town. 

We stopped by the Pybus Public Market that's located next to the Columbia River. Again, almost all the vendors in the marketplace were shut down, only a few were open, but they had very little goods. During normal times this place would have been bursting with locally grown fruits and vegetables, flowers, restaurants, WA wines, and more. We left pretty quickly though since there was nothing to see or do.  

We also drove through Lake Chelan. 

I'm sure it would be fun kayaking here.

It was neat experiencing different types of weather one state can have. I'm glad I lived in Western Washington though. 

On the drive back home we drove through Stevens Pass. There was still snow and it was raining. It's such a pretty drive.

Driving through here made me happy. It was raining hard though, a bit nerve-wracking when you can't see the road that clearly. Thankfully, it didn't last long. 

I enjoy going on day drives so much. It helps keep one's mind stimulated. It also makes life fun by having something to look forward to and in the process new memories are created.

Life is much more than physical existence.