The Trail Ends with the Goonies

Beautiful drive from Port Ludlow to Astoria.

Bridge from Washington to Oregon

Our campsite was at Fort Stevens State Park, just over the bridge from Astoria, in Warrenton, OR.

The park was very nice.  Well maintained and the biggest state park I have ever seen.  It has over 400 sites and a very nice biking/hiking system that goes for miles.

Our site at Fort Stevens SP.

Bike trails in Ft. Stevens SP

There is a shipwreck, called the Peter Iredale, out on the coastal side of the park.

It ran aground in 1906 while headed toward the Columbia River.

Where's Diego?

Group shot on the Pacific.

The beach is for all to enjoy.......even dogs and horses.  It's was so great to see all the different people and animals out enjoying the day.

Horses on the beach!

During our visit we took a tour of Astoria's downtown area, 

Luna found her store.

watched the seals that were making a deafening racket out on the rocks,

Sea Lion everywhere

and hiked up to a 300 year old spruce tree, called Cathedral Tree.

Cathedral Tree herself

Fort Clatsop is just outside of Astoria and was the site that Lewis, Clark, and crew chose to stay for the winter 1805-06.  Story of the World books come to life.

There are lots of little coastal communities along the shore and we stopped by to see a few of them. Walked around Long Beach, Seaside, and Cannon Beach.  This is off season for the coast here and it's difficult to get a feel for them in the mid-summer months, but Long Beach was very small and had a strip of shops down the main road.  There were two roads at either end of the "downtown" that headed west toward the shore.  They were connected by a boardwalk along the coast.  It was cold and windy so we didn't stay out there too long, but it seemed like a nice beach.

Long Beach Boardwalk area

Seaside was my least favorite.  It seemed run down and a tourist t-shirt kind of place.  A little rough around the edges.

Seaside, obviously :)

Seaside

We headed a little further down the coast to check out Cannon Beach and were very pleasantly surprised.  What a cute town.  Again not the best beach weather, but very charming place.  I saw something sticking out behind the houses and was so curious to go find out what it was.  I took a bunch of pictures of the giant rock out on the beach to find out later that it is a very known symbol in Oregon.  One of many rock figures called Haystack Rock and is featured in several pop culture moments.  The Goonies movie was filmed out here and haystack is in a few of the scenes.

I would return to Cannon Beach.  Very nice place.

Cannon Beach (Haystack Rock from the Goonies)

Speaking of the Goonies, we attempted to see the house from he film but there is an ongoing battle between the city and the home owners.  The city promotes the house, but the owners don't want anyone near it.  There are signs directing you where to park, but once you get up to the little side street there are homemade signs posted saying "closed to car and foot traffic".  We reasoned that it was a public road and just wanted a pictures so up we went.  It was a little disappointing though to see the house in such bad shape.  It's been a while since I saw the movie, but the girls recognized it immediately........movie nights with grandpa and Lulu :)

Goonies House

The "stay out" signs.

Back to our coastal tour.....while we were up at Long Beach we went down to Cape Disappointment and looked around.  Pretty views of the Pacific Ocean and the Columbia River.

Lewis and Clark interpretive center at Cape Disappointment.  Looking out at the Pacific.

A little cove on the way to the lighthouse

Cape Disappointment

Over the weekend we attended a ranger program about mushrooms and we learned a lot.  Most of the information was how to identify different mushrooms by color, texture, gills, etc.  but he also told us that when cooking mushrooms on the stove you should "dry cook" them first to get all the water out and then add your oil or wine.  It works great.  

 Girls made new friends from Vancouver :)

Ended our week with a trip to a restaurant we had starred on our map, but can't remember who made the recommendation, The Wet Dog Cafe.  Cute place in Astoria, right on the water. 

Wet Dog Cafe

I love how dog friendly it is in Oregon.  Dogs are everywhere; stores, restaurants, the beach.  There seems to be unspoken rules because all the dogs we petted were mild mannered and we didn't see one poop pile on the beach.

View from Wet Dog Cafe

Nice stop.