Miles 4441-4719: Oregon Coast, Drive to Eugene, and Eugene
That morning, we packed up and left pretty early. We drove for about two hours to the Oregon coast and our first stop was Cannon Beach, to see where one of the last scenes in the movie The Goonies was filmed. My dad loves that movie, so of course, we had to see it. There was a really cool huge rock in the ocean called Haystack Rock. Cannon Beach was pretty crowded, but was cool to walk down. The water was pretty cold, and only a handful of people were swimming in it; everyone else was just enjoying the beach, sitting, walking, or playing in the sand. It was very different from East Coast beaches. It wasn’t chilly, but I needed a jacket because it was so windy. We stopped at a few vista points looking off cliffs over the ocean. They were gorgeous views, with the blue ocean off a cliff and the occasional rock that made it look like something from a movie or a postcard. Our next stop was at the Pier's End Historic Coast Guard Boathouse. It was an old coast guard boathouse at the end of a long pier on the Tillamook Bay. We learned about how the Coast Guard used the boathouse to rescue ships in the bay and the Pacific Ocean and about Bayocean, which was a city that literally fell into the ocean. Our last stop on the coast was at Pacific City, where Jackson and I went wading/swimming in the Pacific Ocean. Because of the Gulf Stream, the Atlantic Ocean is so much warmer on the East Coast than the Pacific is, a good twenty degrees. The water was around sixty degrees and it was freezing at first, but felt really good. It was a lot easier making myself get in the ocean than a lake because in the ocean, you can stand still and let the waves wash over you. In a lake, you have to force yourself to get wet. After drying off and changing, we went inland toward Eugene. Once getting settled in our hotel room, we went to meet Neil, from the camping trip, and he showed us around the University of Oregon. It’s a really cool campus (granted, I’ve never been on an ugly college campus) and Neil was very knowledgeable about what everything was and its history. After walking around the campus, we had dinner at McMenamin’s with Neil. I got a gyro, which was huge, delicious, and I definitely shouldn’t have eaten it all. We had ice cream the day before in McMinnville, but Neil recommended a place called Prince Puckler’s Ice Cream across the street and there was a pretty long line, so you knew it had to be really good. Apparently Obama visited once, so they milk it for all it’s worth, marketing their mint chip as Obama’s favorite. It was pretty delicious though and definitely worth the wait. I got one scoop of mint oreo in a waffle cone and it was 1) amazing and 2) the biggest one scoop I’ve ever seen or had. Mint oreo is probably my new favorite ice cream flavor, even if they probably don’t have it many places. We walked back to our car with our ice cream and said good-bye to Neil. It was really nice seeing him again and reminiscing about our trip in Grand Teton. Back at the hotel, we went to bed pretty quick, excited for our two-hour drive to Banden.
“It’s great to reminisce about good memories of my past. It was enjoyable when it was today. So learning to enjoy today has two benefits: it gives me happiness right now, and it becomes a good memory later.
”