Comprehensive Tour of North Oregon Beaches

We headed to the coast on Tuesday for an in depth look at what the northern beach towns have to offer.

The first stop was the Otis Café in the heart of Otis, Oregon. There we gorged ourselves on an assortment of breakfast items. If you are the artist responsible for the psychedelic crayon-art in the guest-book at the table nearest the refrigerator, drop me a line!

The best thing to do after eating several pounds of homemade breakfast fare is to immediately find a strenuous physical activity. So we decided to climb the massive dune at the north end of Pacific City. The route we took was not as inherently grueling as the classic straight shot up the center of the dune. We wrapped around the back side and made our way through the thickets and brambles. I decided not to wear shoes and received cuts and scratches from the myriad of thorns.

After the dune we proceeded north to the land of the Cheesemakers; Tillamook. We encountered several locals worshipping the town diety 'Cheesus.' We took the official tour of the Tillamook Cheese making cathedral, where the most remarkable thing we saw was a man near one of the giant vats of cheese wearing a 'beard-net.' We assume Cheesus wouldn't be required to wear one of those.

Seaside was our next stop. At the oceanfront monument of Lewis & Clark we eavesdropped one tourist asking another, 'Why did they stop here?' We stared out at the majestic expanse of shimmering Pacific and wondered what roadblock must have impeded their progress...

In addition to the historical monument, Seaside is also home to a bizzare bingo/skee-ball hybrid called 'Fascination.' Each player (up to 40) sits at an upwardly slanting table with a 5 by 5 grid of holes at the far end. The player rolls a lacross ball up the ramp and waits for the ball to drop into a hole. Once the ball drops into a hole, the corresponding light on the table's scoreboard is illuminated. The first player to light up five in a row wins! Each game lasted no more than a minute and the whole room has this frenzied 'lab rat going for a pellet' feel to it.

Our tour ended in Astoria with a walk up to the house they used in the Goonies, a drive by the school from Kindergarten Cop and a trip up and back the two-mile bridge into Washington. Our tourist points were off the hook at the completion of that day!