Days: 35-40
Mile: 3879
On day 35 we left Yachats, OR and headed north up highway 101 to the Canadian border. We stopped in Cannon Beach, OR to see the Haystack Rocks. Now, I have been to Cannon Beach several times before. It’s truly an amazing place. A broad, empty beach with these amazing rocks sticking out of the water. I wanted Lorna to see it as I remembered it. That did not happen.
Cannon Beach was having it’s 60th Annual Sandcastle contest. The place was a mad house. No place to park our rig and there were hundreds of people on the beach AND they were allowing cars to drive on the beach. What a shock. After finding a parking place, we entered the beach and could see the the sandcastle contest was, what appear to be, miles away so we just walked to the Haystacks. The tide was so low the rocks weren’t even in the water…which was actually sort of cool. You could walk right up them and the surrounding tidal pools. We never made it to the sandcastles.
We spent days 36 and 37 in Astoria, OR at the mouth of the Columbia River. This is the end of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The Columbia River is a massive river. Where it empties into the Pacific is some of the most dangerous waters in the country. The US Coast Guard uses the bar at the mouth of the river for training purposes.
We visited the Columbia River Maritime Museum and toured the Columbia, a lighthouse ship. At 617 tons and 128 ft long, this ship was anchored near the mouth of the river to mark the entrance. It stayed anchored, even in storms. Makes me sea sick just thinking about it!!!
We met these cuties at the Astoria Sunday Market
Day 38, we stopped in Olympia, OR and visited Gary’s cousin and 91-year-old uncle.
From Olympia, WA north was solid traffic. Olympia merges into Tacoma, which merges into Seattle, merges into Marysville, which merges into Mount Vernon, and on up to Bellingham. Gary was exhausted by the time we reached our camp spot in Ferndale.
This was our last night with Lorna. We crossed the boarder into Canada on June 19, 40 days into our journey. Our trip odometer read: 3832. The crossing was uneventful. No wait time, just a few questions about where we were from, where we were headed and how long we were planning to stay. It was so much easier than we anticipated!
We said goodbye to our dear friend, Lorna. She is off to see her friends on Vancouver Island and then back to Waynesville. I have to admit, saying goodbye made me a bit homesick.
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