Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay

Netarts Bay RV Park is about 6 miles west of Tillamook located on, of course, Netarts Bay.  The RV Park caters to people wanting to fish and crab; the office sells fishing licenses, crab pots, rents boats, and has a fish/crab cleaning station.  We considered renting a boat and crab pot, but decided $100 will buy you a lot of crab.  This park is very charming and maybe just a bit rustic in areas.  It has an old section and a new section, but it's the old section that has the views.  The old suits us just fine.

The little town of Oceanside is about 2 miles from our RV Park; and it has homes clinging to the cliffs in every direction.  The beach in front of the town is very nice, but it's the cave off to the north end of the beach that caught our eye.  It starts out like a mine shaft, square with concrete sides, and then transitions to a normal rock cave.  It emerges onto a small beach that funnels the waves into big splashes against the large rocks in the ocean and on the sand.  The crashing waves echo loudly off the beach cliffs.  Finding this beach was well worth walking through the small cave.  I wouldn't want to get caught in high tide there, though.  The picture on the right is the "cave" beach from a high viewpoint up the road.

Next, we drove on to Cape Meares.  Cape Meares not only has an interesting, small lighthouse, but a tree known as the Octopus tree.  Although there is disagreement on its odd shape, it is thought that the tree was shaped by the local Native Americans to hold canoes with their deceased.  I like this story and I'll just go with that. (The other explanation was that this was just a mutated tree...boring.) The scenery on the Oregon Coast is getting wilder the farther south we go with soaring cliffs and more variey of birds.  The views from this location really are breathtaking.