Life's Good!

The Megler bridge in Astoria that connects Oregon with Washington

It was a rather gloomy day when we set out for yet another trip to the coast last Monday.
Fall, literary, is starting to creep in, and the marine layer that covered the beaches had made it's way all the way into the Willamette valley.
Of course I wasn't complaining, I love those grey days!
This time we were on a quest to check out the northern most part of the coast from about Cannon Beach to Astoria and we started out on the US 47 all the way north to Claskenie on the Columbia River.

After driving through miles of pretty, hilly farmlands you enter the Clatsop State Forest where the road snakes its way slowly over some over the higher hills and passes ..
We took a break for some coffee, overlooking the forests and despite the cloudy day you could see forever.
After a while we reached Clatskanie where we started to follow the river towards the coast ..

There's not many places you can actually see the river, but there's this view from Bradley State Scenic Viewpoint. The state of Washington is on the left, the state of Oregon on the right, divided by the Columbia River!

On arrival at Astoria we checked out the boardwalk along the waterfront where you have a great view of the Merger bridge and the container-ships that are waiting on the tide to be piloted out to sea.
They have to navigate the infamous Columbia Bar, frequently called the Graveyard of the Pacific, which is a system of bars and shoals at the mouth of the Columbia River spanning the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington. It is known as one of the most dangerous bar crossings in the world.

We decided to have an early lunch at Mo's, the famous 75-year-old family-owned restaurant that specializes in Seafood and Clam Chowder.

We had a window view, it was a little too nippy to sit outside, and enjoyed a bowl of their delicious clam chowder and a dish of blackened shrimp.
I couldn't resist an oyster shooter but was very disappointed in discovering it didn't contain a drop of alcohol!

Bottoms up!

Thus reinforced we checked out two campgrounds situated just out of town which ofcourse was one of the reasons for our trip north.
One, the Lewis & Clark Golf (!) and RV Park, turned out to be rather decent with roomy, grassy sites and actual views of the golf course, so yeah .. a contender for future stays.
We left Astoria behind us and took the US 101 south to the town of Seaside, drove by several campgrounds that I'd already nixed due to bad reviews or unsuitability for one reason or another, until we came upon the Circle Creek RV Park just south of Seaside.

This one got our stamp of approval as well, nice large sites with actual trees (an oddity here on the coast) and a creek running around it's parameters.

Driving ever farther south we checked out Sea Ranch RV Park in Cannon Beach, which unfortunately turned out to be no good with very short and narrow sites, there's just no way we can get in there.
Unfortunate because look, this is Cannon Beach:

Gorgious Cannon Beach

We parked and walked through town for a little while. (Also unfortunately is the fact that in high season this place is a zoo!)

But oh, that beach!

By now we had enough fresh ocean breeze in our longs to last us for a while, although the marine layer had cleared up and it had been a quite beautiful sunny day, and we decided to head back home.
On our way to Tillamook, where we were going to take the US 6 inland, we unexpectedly passed two very small campgrounds at Rockaway Beach that weren't on my 'list', since on paper they looked to be not much more than fish-camps.
One of them, the no frills Jetty Fishery Marina and RV Park actually turned out to be rather nice:

Located on the waters of the Nehalem Bay, less than 10 feet to tide pools, authentic cabled docks and sandy beaches and just a 2 minute boat ride across the Nehalem Bay you’ll find yourself on the deserted beaches of the Nehalem Bay State Park.
Wow, just what I was looking for!

But of course there's a caveat .. there's no sewer hook-up ..
Which means we have to either empty our tank somewhere else twice a week or find a company that comes by every week or so to pump us out (for a fee).
I'll look into it, but this might be a problem, especially since this place is rather rural .. oh, well .. always something.

OK, since Doug and Brenda (our 'bosses') were out of town for 2 weeks this time around, we had a little more free time on our hands than usual, so we went for a second outing this week .. yeah, wow!
I'd found an event in Canby, only about 20 minutes away from us, on the 'other' side of the Willamette Valley.
It's an area we have not yet been since we arrived here, so when I read about their yearly Dahlia Fall Festival I was eager to check it out.
We almost didn't though because, due to the wildfires in Northern Oregon of lately, we woke up to this:

An eerie sunrise, followed by a weird yellow glow in the sky and bad air quality made us hesitate to go out, but we decided to give it try. We could always go back ..
Upon arriving in Canby we first had coffee at Gwynn's Coffeehouse:

With some pastries of course:

After which we drove to Swan Island Dahlias, just out of town:

Each August & September this farm with it's 40 acres of beautiful dahlias in more than 370 varieties open for the public to stroll through.

Bouquets are available for purchase and you can order your favorite dahlias for delivery and planting in the spring.
There's a gift shop full of other treasures you may want to take home.

On weekends, classes ranging from painting to gardening to photoshoots to flower arranging to body care products to yoga are offered and musicians perform on Saturdays and Sundays from 12-4 p.m.

Due to Covid the event was cancelled for 2 years in a row but this year they were back in business, and we enjoyed walking through the fields seeing the amazing variety in a rainbow of colors of these well loved old-fashioned flowers that are all 'in-vogue' again!

For such beautiful, elegant flowers, the dahlias have some pretty funny and quirky names.

How about 'Awe Shucks', 'Bed Head' (this one has wild, carefree petals), 'Hokey Pokey', 'Sugar Daddy',
'Pooh', 'Blah Blah Blah' (a pretty interesting looking dahlia, despite it’s name) and even one named after my Mom 'Nettie'!