Liz & Laurel do the North Coast

Laurel came down for Easter weekend, and once again we had an epic adventure. It was the most beautiful of days- bright sunshine, blue skies, temperatures that made it feel like deep summer rather than early spring. We left early, tidepooled at Cannon Beach, then drove south, stopping at several places along the way to explore, lie in the sun, take photos, and marvel at the beauty of the day and the Pacific Ocean. With hopes of seeing whales (it's the middle of the gray whale migration right now) we ended up halfway down the coast at Otter Rock, one of my very favorite places on the Oregon Coast. The sun was bright and there was a glare on the ocean, but we saw a couple spouts anyway. Laurel decided we should stay to see the sunset- something I had no argument with. We sat on a picnic table on a cliff above Gleneden Beach and watched the ocean turn purple and orange and gold. I so love these adventures with this most awesome of girlfriends- chatting and singing along with our selected soundtrack for the day (our various selections included The Wailin' Jennys, The Chieftains, Fun, and Glee covers of Madonna...we're all over the board like that), stopping for mango smoothies, enjoying the people-watching (everybody and their dog was at the coast that day) and laughing at the random things seen along the way.

 Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach

 One of many sea stars at the tidepools at Cannon Beach

The Big Blue.

There's simply nothing like sunshine sparkling on the ocean.

Rockaway Beach.

Silly experiments with the timer on my camera. This was at Pacific City.

Looking for whales at Otter Rock. You can see the tiny speck of the Yaquina Head Light off in the distance behind me.

Devil's Punchbowl and the blue blue ocean.

 Photo by Laurel. The ocean really was that color.

We got back to Portland at 10 PM, bone tired and with our pockets full of sand. The next day included wine tasting and exploring out in the Willamette Valley on another beautiful day, but that Saturday at the coast is one I'm going to remember for a long time.