Completing our lighthouse collection
We had another day of touring the Oregon coast, checking out little towns, and collecting lighthouses.
Heceta lighthouse was our favorite. Not only is it beautiful, but it is one of only 5 still-operating lighthouses on the Oregon coast. It is amazing one tiny lightbulb (pictured below) can do all that work when properly lensed.
Bonus points because this lighthouse has a nice 1–mile trek up and down the hill to view it. While we were there it was drizzly, raining, overcast, and sunny all in one! As cloud and wave watchers, it was quite entertaining.
Yaquina Bay lighthouse was a great stop and chance to grab some classic Keig Family bologna sandwiches while listening to NFL in the rain.
The various turnouts between lighthouses do not disappoint, especially when the skies cooperate.
One turnout did not even have a good view of the ocean from the lot. Steve is getting quite adventurous as he dove into a bunch of trees and brush on a barely-there unmarked trail, leading to a secret viewing point. Apparently this trail had hail here not too long ago!
At Depoe Bay Steve got to be up close and personal with some seriously crashing big waves that almost looked like Yellowstone geysers.
At this pullout we ran into an older couple from Southern California who have the same brand/general age camper van as ours. Thirty minutes later we had pretty much compared all of the features and agreed the vans are awesome. Funny side note: We saw them again later in the day at the Tillamook cheese factory, but we didn’t say hi because we really didn’t have another half hour - they were extremely chatty!
We took the Three Capes Scenic Route diversion off of US-101 to catch some off-highway ocean views en route to Tillamook.
Cape Kiwanda:
Cape Lookout:
And our final lighthouse and cape of the day - Cape Meares, where we arrived just after a rain shower:
Overall, while we didn’t get to every lighthouse, we did pretty good. Our scorecard is below.
And after all of that natural and historical beauty, we still had time to tour the Tillamook cheese factory - including free samples!
And with that we turned east and headed toward home. The rainy drive through the Tillamook National Forest on the way to Portland had some of the most beautiful fall colors in the dusky, misty skies. Nice send-off, Oregon!
6 hours later, home sweet home!
