Today Jason, Kristen and I headed up the Oregon Coast with McKenzie to Cape Meares and Cape Lookout for some easy day hiking on the coast. It took us nearly 2 hours of driving to get all the way to Tillamook where we headed West onto the scenic drive around the state parks past Oceanside and other cute little Oyster towns around Netards Bay.
Cape Meares was really beautiful. When we first got there we went over to the wooden viewing platform above the cliffs where we met some Audobahn people who 
were looking at Black Cormorants through their telescopes. The birds were pretty far away but you could see their nests due to all their white shit dripping down the rocks around them... The three of us and dog then hiked down a little ways to the lighthouse where I climbed inside to check it out. They are all pretty much to the
same when you are in them I'm learning. After the lighthouse we took a walk around the park and came across a giant sitka spruce tree called the Octopus tree which had a circumference of about 50 feet! It basically looked like a
giant end 
of a sprouting potato sticking out of the ground! Check out the picture and read the description in it. After hiking back out to the road we came upon a path down to the beach which we decided to check out. After descending
about 2 miles we came to a very eroded beach which McKenzie had
a blast running around in. I also found a live small mother dungenese crab to check out that was protecting a huge sack of eggs with it's hind legs. On the way back up the trail we found some pretty huge red raspberries to eat. I'm not sure what variety they were but they were pretty tarty... maybe not ready to eat just yet.
After climbing back up the trail we headed south down the coast towards Cape Lookout. On the way I stopped at a skeevy looking R.V. park to buy some local Netards Bay Oysters. 24 for 9 bucks!... ohhhh yeah. We through them in Kristen's lunch bag where she conveniently had ice packs as well! I had no idea how I'm going to get them open when I got home.
Cape Lookout was fantastic. We basically followed a path that led out to the end of 
the peninsula. The trail followed the upper edge of massive cliffs that plunged into the ocean hundreds of feet below us. The picture in this paragraph I found on the web to show you what we were
hiking above... We were so high that we were stuck in a pretty neat fog the whole way out with strong winds. When we got to the end after hiking through a bunch of mud, covering the dog, the fog
began to lift and we could see the beaches and shore to the south. There was a cool looking coastal squirrel who was curious about us as well. On the way back I spotted some more cormorants on the rocks and got some better pictures of them then I'm sure the Autobahn guys where getting at Cape Meares.
It was a beautiful day on the coast but Jason's and Kristen's Knees had enough after the 10 miles so we decided to call it a day and head back to Corvallis through Lincoln City where we got some DQ per tradition of weekend hiking return trips.
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