Cannon Beach

Ecola State Park, Oregon

/ Cate Spader / Leave a comment

Friday, July 27 (continued)

After our time relaxing at the beach, Al and I knew we had some hiking to do!

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Our walk to the state park wasn’t all flowers and sunshine though!  We had to walk up to the entrance of the park, which consisted of walking uphill for ~30 mins-1 hour and made us short of breath even before the “real” hiking began!

Once we arrived at the entrance, the guide helped us pick which trail we wanted to hike.  Since we craved high, ocean views, we chose to head west and felt the ocean air.

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Prior to heading back uphill to continue on our path, a huge bug landed in Al’s mouth as he was talking! I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t even walk back up on the trail!

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Even though I couldn’t get his bug incident on camera, I’m happy we took the above pictures 🙂

The views were incredible, the stories were endless, and the laughs were much-needed after a long day of hiking!

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Cannon Beach, Oregon

/ Cate Spader / Leave a comment

Friday, July 27

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Al and I took a bus from Portland to Cannon Beach early on Friday (that way, we could spend a full day at this gorgeous place)!

We ate a great lunch at the Pelican Brewery in town then went straight to the beach.  The air was fresh, the water was freezing, and there were dogs EVERYWHERE!  I was in heaven!

We had both been to California on separate occasions (Al in San Diego, myself in San Francisco), so being back on the West Coast meant a lot to us.

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I was worried that everyone was going to think that Al and I were a couple (especially because 1. I have an engagement ring on and 2. we were talking a long walk on the beach together…), but no one did!  We still wanted a picture together though!

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I prefer the photo that the kind stranger took as opposed to our poorly-attempted selfie!

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On our walk, we were remembering some of our favorite family trips from our childhood (Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Florida…).  Exchanging those memories and funny stories was something I’ll never forget.  We also found some interesting wildlife along the way…

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Full disclosure: I thought I was stepping on a plastic wrapper filled with water, when it was actually a piece of a washed up jellyfish!!!

 

Aside from the jellyfish scare, our time at the beach was perfect!