Woke up to Erik calling Sara's phone. Mine was set to silent, and he was trying to find our sole bike lock. Sara and I went back to sleep. We got up and checked out of the hotel around 10am, then ate breakfast at the Columbian Cafe, which was tiny, slow, crotchety: in a word, divine.
We walked to the 6th Ave view tower, and on a short loop from the Sullivan book past Flavel House and the county jail, among other beautiful, decrepit Victorian structures. We bought a six-pack at the health food store and stopped in the Blue Scorcher for coffee and delicious sesame cookies-- the only vegan baked good and surprisingly tasty. We drove up to the Goonies house, then over to the Astoria Column (after a bit of getting lost), which was sadly closed to replace the circular staircase.
Sara's love of the Astoria-Megler Bridge and a desire to do 101 justice lead us to drive over to Washington, stop for a few photos, then over to Clatsop Spit to see the northern- and western-most point of Oregon. Finding our way through Fort Stevens State Park to the spit proved difficult; the Sullivan book had a wrong turn. The shipwreck, however, was easy and satisfying. We stopped at a KOA coffeeshop to use the wifi, destroying the espresso machine with my americano order. Onward, the long way round and including some errands, to Short Sand Beach just north of Manzanita, which is probably the beach I've visited most, although I never realized that it was the famed, named as such.
We got a takeout pizza at Marzano's, drank a beer in the dunes while waiting, and ate it on a bench outside the restaurant. From there, it was a race to Cape Meares to see the sunset-- we missed it by one or two minutes but it was a wild ride down a rutted, be-dipped road, ending in a downhill dash to a bright copper line in the sky. Still, the dusk sky and coastline were breathtaking. From there we drove straight to Newport, for gas, and Sara finished the drive to Coos Bay. We arrive past 1am to check into the Motel 6 and stayed up til 3am to prove a point; I worked on photos and Sara worked on her polaroid postcard project.