We bailed from work early on Friday, and headed out for the coast with Allen, Nitya (a guy from India who is visiting our group at work), Michelle, and the Horihan family. We went to dinner at a restaurant called Mo's in Lincoln City. This is a good chain of seafood restaurants along the coast, with a family atmosphere (which is good when you have a 2-year-old with you). Meals go for $10-$15, and the locations are generally great (right along the ocean). I would definitely go back for a quick meal.
We arrived at the Cape Perpetua campground at ~8:30 Friday evening an setup camp. We got really lucky and got a great couple of spots. The whole campground is along a little stream, but our sites happened to be relatively secluded. We were in sites 14 and 15. Site 13 is also really nice (and has a short path that connects it to 14), so that would have been the best situation. 15 was the most secluded, but is a bit close to the bathrooms, so there was a small amount of light. However, they were really both great sites. Below is a picture of site 14.
We had a nice campfire and a few beers on Friday night, and then hit the sack.
Saturday we got up and had a quick breakfast and hiked down to the ocean to do some hiking. We first scoped out Devil's Churn ... which was okay. Below is a picture of some wildflowers growing along the coast.
We were there maybe an hour after high tide (which is the best time to go) ... so I might try to go back some other time when the tide was higher. We then headed on over to some tidepools. Below is a picture of some tadpolls and their egg sack that we saw sitting near a small stream and the tide pools.
After scoping out the tidepools, we went on a little hike along the coast and then up a stream into an old growth forest that had some gigantic spruce trees. It was an okay hike ... nothing that exciting. There were some more wildflowers along the coast. Here is one of the pictures I took.
We then headed on back to the campground and then drove up to the top of a nearby overlook where I took the picture below.
We then headed back to camp and were eventually joined by Chrissy and our new intern Melvin. Meanwhile, Allen and Jason were out collecting over 100 mussels along the coast. After they got back, I started up a fire and we chilled out while they spent an hour or so cleaning their catch. We cooked up some brats over the fire and Allen and Jason proceeded to cook (and eat) all 100 of their mussels. We were all taking bets on who would get sick first ... but they all turned out to be fine.
Later our friend Anna, her sister Maria, and their friend Sarah showed up (somewhat unexpectedly) and joined us for a nice evening around the campfire. This was eventually cut short when the rain started to come down pretty hard. The single-folk hung out in the back of Chrissy's SUV for a while, while the domesticated folks hit the sack.
Sunday we got up and had a nice breakfast and then headed home. Good times. I give the campground an 8 and the hiking in the area a 5. Definitely somewhere worth spending a few hours or a day at ... but I don't think I would want to spend much longer than that in the area :).
You can see all the photos here.
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