Seaside, OR - Fun Beach Run

The Oregon Coast holds a very special place in my heart. My Uncle has a really cool house in Cannon Beach so my parents used to take me down there when I just a baby swaddled in diapers. Some of my favorite childhood pictures were snapped down there with the famous Haystack rocks towering above the ocean in the background. The salty smell of the ocean, the crisp wind, the drift wood haphazardly strewn about the beach, the endless sandy beaches, the myriad wildlife being nourished by the bounty of the ocean, there are some of my favorite memories and experiences to this day. There is no place on the planet I would rather be on a warm sunny day or a windy stormy day then at the Oregon Coast.

This past weekend my friends Vawn and Lou McCollum invited me to join them at their beach house off of 12th Ave in Seaside, OR. With a week of summer vacation available they had decided to take their kids down to the beach and enjoy the good weather. The weather forecast was predicting sun and light clouds so when the invitation came along I decided to make the trip down and join them. Outside of the many fun planned activities like BBQ'ing and some excellent drinks with dessert down on the beach, we basically hung-out and talked, did some beach combing and generally enjoyed ourselves.

On Sunday morning Vawn, Lou and the kids had a preplanned activity, leaving me with time on my hands. I laced up my road shoes and headed down to the beach. Fortunately, the tide was ebbing at it's lowest point so I was able to run on some hard-packed sand. I first headed South down the beach all the way to the end of town at the rocks, turned around at Ocean Vista Dr and then headed North along the beach as far as possible before the inland waterway outlet cut me off with some heavy outflow. I found it very peaceful running by the early morning surfers, happy beachcombers, parents with kids and cavorting dogs. As I headed inland on the beach and ran around the "back side" of the neighborhoods I took one of the small trails heading south onto N Franklin St and into that neighborhood. I just aimlessly ran for a while, making my way to downtown via whatever streets seemed to be calling my name. The intermingled smells of the restaurants was making me really hungry as my stomach started rumbling (I had forgotten to eat - doh!). It was time to head back to the house at a quick pace and join the McCollums for a tasty breakfast of veggies and scrambled eggs. Yum!

On my way out of town on Sunday afternoon, I was bitten by the bug of wanderlust. The road less traveled seemed to be calling me. I decided to take a route I had never driven myself. I went North on Hwy 101-N to the quaint town of Astoria. I hadn't been to Astoria in years and was really surprised to see just how well preserved it is. A very pastoral scene with lots of old brick buildings and neat little shops. I had heard that there was a cool little health food store (one of my measures of a cool town is by the funkiness of the health food store) so I went there first. Astoria Co-op is located on Duane St. It's a well stocked little co-op serving the local community with organics and natural items. I was already getting hungry for lunch so I was directed to a small Peruvian restaurant on Commercial St. called Andes Cuisine. I don't even remember what I ate there but I can tell that it was really good. Finding Peruvian food in little Astoria, OR is honestly the last thing I was expecting but I was pleasantly surprised as I sat outside on the street under the hot sun. I could almost imagine myself sitting in Cusco at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Pretty neat.

My drive home to Seattle was taken via another new route. Might as well keep going, right? I took Hwy 101-N over the famous 4-mile long Astoria-Megler Bridge which crosses the mouth of the Columbia River and is the longest continuous truss bridge in North America. What a view. From 101-N I took Hwy 401-E through the little community of Naselle and then to Hwy 4-E, also known as the Ocean Beach Hwy. After an exhilarating winding drive in the mountains through the little burgs of Gray's River, Sleepy Hollow, and Cathlamet, all nestled deep in serious logging country, I drove East along the Columbia River passing Puget Island, Wallace Island, and Crims Island before eventually dropping into Longview, WA. Longview is the larger Western counterpart to Kelso, the two towns being bifurcated by I-5. I don't remember ever having been to Longview before, and frankly I would never had a reason to go there in the past, but for a 'pulp and paper' town in ain't too bad. I quickly found I-5 and motored home. It was a good weekend.