Oregonian Vacation, Day 2

Day two was both tasty and beautiful.

First we wandered the streets of Seaside to have a look around. I knew I wanted to pay a visit to a certain candy store I'd fallen in love with the last time I was in the area.


They have 170 flavors of taffy. The kids and I carefully concocted a big bag of it. Ryan only lasted a minute in there since he can't stand the smell of candy. He waited outside on a chair while the rest of us became entranced by the magical array of salt water taffy.

I love the floor.

And I thought this picture on the wall was cute...

I can relate to this. I've worked for candy pretty much my whole life. If I was given back all the money I've ever spent on candy, I'd be a rich woman. This sign was hanging next to the wheel of prizes that I neglected to take a picture of. Oliver spun the wheel and won a small bag of taffy. The rest of us weren't so lucky.


After that we drove to the Tillamook cheese factory.

I don't know what I'd do without cheese.

Look at all that cheddary goodness.


We took advantage of the cheese samples and eventually enjoyed ice cream cones. Then we bought a pack of squeaky cheese for the road (though we didn't actually give any to the road).

Our next destination was Cape Lookout, which is a scenic walking path that my stepdad recommended to us. It's about a 5 mile round-trip excursion. The inclines were very gradual, so it was not difficult.

The only problem was the mud.


Much of the trail was a big mess. We hadn't anticipated this, but we somehow muddled through. We tried to walk along the edges that were a bit drier, but some spots were just completely squishy.

At one point Oliver biffed it. Dirty kid.




I love that these tree roots look like stairs.

These were good for traction. I almost bit the mud a couple of times due to slick areas requiring creative footwork. I pretty much did a triple lutz at one point in a desperate attempt to keep from falling. It worked. =)


I loved this neato tree.


Here's one of the views we came upon.









Cora and Jane look so small.



Such fantastic views!

Between all the mud and gunk we savored so many wonderful sights. The walk kind of paralleled my life. Or anyone's life. Sometimes you just have to keep pushing through the crap to get to the good parts.







Yet another cool tree.






Yup, I also liked this tree. I thought the smattering of moss and greenery looked cool. The tree itself was immense. I should have had someone pose next to it for perspective. You'll just have to trust me that it was really big.

I'm guessing it took us about an hour to make it to the ending point.

Here we are. It was breathtaking up there.

When we made it back to the car our feet were soiled beyond belief. We had to un-shoe and line them up on flattened grocery bags in the back of the car. Some of us had spare footwear to put on. On the drive back to the hotel we stopped at Subway to quickly tame our hunger. We ate in the car. When we got back to our room I think we turned on the TV and watched the Disney Channel. We did quite a bit of that during our resting phases.

Stay (or get) tuned for Day 3 . . . Coming whenever.