Day 116, to Nehalem Bay State Park: Tidal pools, a jetty, another very big tree, a local seafood dinner and a sunset on the beach

August 16, 2022

Tuesday stats

The Daily Whale-y: 0. (Total so far: 2)

Start: Twins Ranch Campground, Tillamook, Ore.

End: Nehalem Bay State Park, just south of Manzanita, Ore. Elevation: 72

Here's our campsite within the hiker/biker area of the Nehalem Bay State Park campground. The evening sun is casting long shadows from the many trees in this wooded area, creating a beautiful golden effect. Our tent is set up to the left, and our hammock to the right, with a long rope hanging behind them, holding up our drying clothes. Behind our tent is a whole group of tents in a polychromatic pod of giant toadstools.

Uphill / downhill: 1095 / 1036

Ice cream flavors: NA

Beer/wine: A pilsner from Hood River for me, a Pinot Gris for Dani (I forget its vineyard)

Lodging expenses: $16

Food expenses: $122 for dinner at Big Wave Cafe (crab appetizer and salmon for me, crab cakes for Dani. The crab was Dungeness crab from Garibaldi, which we rode through today. The salmon was from the Columbia River, the mouth of which we'll reach at Fort Stevens on Thursday. We actually passed right by an interpretive sign today that described the seafood found in the area, explicitly mentioning dungeness crab and four or five salmonids, which apparently include trout. In any case, that sign prompted me to ask Dani which she would have if she had to choose between crab and salmon. Tonight I decided on both. Both were very good, but I decided that I like the taste of crab better than that of salmon, which was a surprise. I think I learned that most of the time I've had salmon before, it was glazed with something, masking the fishy flavor. Tonight's salmon was "salmon, simply salmon," and I enjoyed it but was actually surprised that it was not a more nuanced flavor. In any case, a nice treat.) Other food expenses: $28, I think, at the market in Manzanita.

Dani's daily digest

I'm so glad we ended up with all this extra time at the end of our trip. We're having a blast on the Oregon Coast.

Our first port-of-call was an area called The Three Graces. We arrived just at low tide, allowing us to explore the tide pools. We spied crabs, anemones, isopods, starfish, snails, and kelp.

Our second stop was the Barview Jetty, which gets rave reviews on Google (for example, PerformanceBaggersWestCoast says the jetty is "One of [their] favorite places ever!") for being a great place to watch waves crash, but I think that may be more of winter phenomenon. Today it was a pretty ordinary jetty. Still a nice place to have a picnic, and we peeped some pigeon guillemots. It's always fun for me to see and identify a previously unfamiliar bird.

Dani sits on a rock on the jetty, a jar of peanut butter in one hand and a spoon in the other. In the background: the ocean crashing onto the sandy beach, and a hilly green horizon.

Our third adventure was the Big Tree Trail in Rockaway. We didn't know at the time we began our hike that this trail led to the largest western red cedar in Oregon. I've rhapsodized about old-growth cedar groves in other blog entries, and this one was no exception.

After these diversions, we decided to bike 15 consecutive miles to our day's destination: Nehalem Bay State Park. That sounded to me like a lot of miles to bike in a row after our relaxed pace for the past few days, but it was not bad at all.

We pitched camp in the state park's hiker/biker area, which is sheltered by pines, carpeted in moss, and full of hiker/bikers. In late afternoon, golden light cut through the grove of pines, illuminating a forest filled with polychromatic nylon mushrooms (our tents, if the metaphor is not obvious).

We rode into the town of Manzanita for a fancy seafood dinner. The charms of seafood are lost on me, but I can respect Chris's interest in trying the local fare (the salmon he ate came from the Columbia River). My crabcakes were fine, but I really enjoyed my crunchy sesame seaweed, soy broccoli, jasmine rice and Oregon Pinot Gris.

We capped off the day with a pilgrimage to the beach to bear witness to the continued rotation of the Earth in the form of watching the sun set over the Pacific. I'm pleased to report that the planet is still spinning, folks!

Dani walks her bike down a path through dense trees from the campground to the beach, where we were headed to watch the sunset. She looks small, surrounded by many tall, slender tree trunks in the waning sunlight.

Today's ride: 27 miles (43 km)
Total: 4,365 miles (7,025 km)

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