We found the coast!!!!

We left Graham yesterday to move on to Tillamook, OR. We chose to go the scenic route instead of taking I5 south. It was a gray and rainy day, which makes it not that much fun to drive. We made it to Highway 101 and I have to say I was surprised to see that it is only a two lane road. I would have thought that as well known and traveled as it is, it would have been a four lane road. The second surprise was that this coastal highway goes through a lot of hills and is very windy. It took us 5 hours to drive 220 miles, but the huge bridge that crosses the Columbia river was totally cool. It was too foggy to take a picture, so it always will be a mental picture. The state of Oregon forgot to welcome us with a big sign on the bridge and I was just a little bit annoyed. I like those big signs welcoming you to a new state.

We saw some beautiful scenery along the way and decided today to go back up to Seaside and drive down Highway 101 again to stop at some of these places.

I forgot just how much I missed the ocean and the beaches and the water here are so clean. Next we stopped at Haystack Rock and had a great lunch in a restaurant with full view of the big rock.

I could really fall in love with this place. There are some trees that look like they are growing sideways; I guess it must be windy here. And of course, we found another rock in the water. They seem to have quite a few here :-)

And then the strangest thing happen. We all know that it is a small world, but who would have thought that we would see Ute Czetli, our neighbor at Retama Village, at the next stop. It was to funny. She is here with her daughter and daughter's in-laws to check out the west coast. We talked for a few minutes and continued on our sight seeing tour.

These beaches are just so beautiful!!!! I think I am falling in love with this place and we have only seen so little of this amazing coastline.

As we have been driving around the area we have been seeing these beautiful flower and I finally got some good shots.


We had a great time today exploring the area and I am looking forward to tomorrow. There are so many more things to see. We are so blessed to be able to take this time to explore and enjoy this great country!!!!