Oregon Coast, Bulldogs, & Comptche

Odometer: 210,579

What a trip! We’re at the very tail end of it now – just a few hours from home. I bet 3.5 hours will go by in the blink of an eye considering what we have behind us. Yesterday was a long drive day: 9.5 hours (without stops). But nevertheless, enjoyable!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up a bit.

After leaving Chris & Nat’s in Idaho, we drove west toward the coast. As we got into the Columbia River/Gorge area, I felt like my soul was refilling, refreshed. Montana and Idaho were super cool – absolutely! But it turns out I was designed to live on tall, green trees and wet dirt. Some people love the city lights and impressive skylines, some people love the beach, some people love wide open plains and big skies – I love the big trees. It’s just built into my hardware.

So we drove and drove, stopping occasionally here and there. I loved the trees and the views, and felt refreshed just by looking out the window.

Eventually, we hit the coast. Cannon Beach, to be exact – the perfect jumping off point to our Oregon coast adventure! Haystack Rock on Cannon Beach is (apparently) one of the most photographed features of the coast. So we walked along the beach to the rock, took some pictures, enjoyed the view and the fresh sea air, and continued on our way.

We continued down the northern portion of the Oregon coast in much the same fashion – stopping here for a walk on the beach and there for a hike through the woods. It was awesome and beautiful. One of my favorite parts was when we did a little hike through the forest that ended at the beach.

 Much of the drive hugged the beach, and when it deviated from the coast, it just dipped deeper into the woods for a brief moment.

Lots of beaches, lots of woods, lots of happiness.

One of our last stops of the day was a little winery off the beaten path. The person offering that tastings was what you would describe as “a character”. . . by which I mean, a little crazy – but charmingly so. We had a delightful time, tried at least a dozen wines, and left with two bottles. One that makes bomb apple cider and one that tastes like honey. I didn’t even know wines came in such a large variety!!

We spent the night in a cheap oceanfront hotel in Lincoln, OR. “Cheap” and “oceanfront” seem to be contradictory, I know, but everything is oceanfront on this road – plus we didn’t have a view. But who cares? We had soaked up the view all day!

The next morning, we were up early and had walked down to the beach and explored for a bit.

Then, we hit the road for the central Oregon coast portion of our trip. Our first stop of the day was Depoe Bay – the whale watching capital of Oregon! Within probably (literally) 30 seconds of leaving the harbor, we started weeing whales. I have never seen SO MANY whales on a whale watching trip. It was INSANE! You practically had to have you head on a swivel to see all of them!! It was very, very cool.

More beaches, more woods. More happiness. We had lunch in Newport, OR – which is apparently the Dungeness Crab capital of the world. Ken, of course, had crab. We wandered around the town, watched the sea lions off the dock.

Then we headed inland for a special addition to our trip. If you’ve spoken to me at all within the last 6 months, you probably know that Ken and I are extremely excited to get a puppy – and English Bulldog puppy, to be exact. There was a breeder in Oregon that we were eager to meet, and we thought we’d take this opportunity to go and see her and her dogs.

It was even better than we could have hoped! All ten (!!!!) of her bulldogs were happy and healthy. Brenda (the breeder) was awesome. And we had such a fun time playing with the bulldogs. For literally nearly three hours! What a fantastic evening!!

We had dinner with Brenda and her husband Joel, and we hope to come back up in December to pick up our new puppy and bring him home. (yay!!)

Then, it was back out our scheduled programming, so to speak. We left Brenda & Joel’s probably a little after 7, and drove the few hours back to the cost and a bit south to our campsite right on the other side of a line of trees from the beach.

We set up our tent and sleeping situation in record time, and were asleep before you could say “bulldogs are awesome”.

Woke up and had breakfast on the beach. So fun! Such a great way to start the day.

Then we drove a bit south, and went on a hike through the tall spruce trees that I really enjoyed. I’m convinced that in a perfect world, everyday would start with a hike through tall trees. Especially when you're still wearing your jammies and carrying coffee. Recipe for perfection.

And so, our day continued in much the same way! We never drove for more than 1.5-2 hours without a break. Our main break was frisbee. Truly, it’s the PERFECT way to break up long car rides. It gets your legs moving, your arms moving, your heart rate up – just the perfect break!

So that’s how our day progressed. Drive through beauty, take a break to play frisbee on the beach, drive a bit more, play frisbee in the forest, repeat.

A couple other stops where sprinkled throughout our day: the Sea Lion Caves (with no sea lions, but we bought fudge!), an old diner for lunch, a quick stop to look at the elk(!!!??) in Northern California, etc.

The drive was stunning. I'm always surprised at how big the really, really big trees are. It felt unworldly to drive down the 101 (named Redwood Hwy where we were) and just feel dwarfed completely by the giants towering above. I loved it.

Then, eventually, after stringing together all those short drives and refreshing breaks, we landed at our last stop: Comptche.

Comptche is a little town in the woods of Northern California. My parents have a house up here, and we come up here basically as often as we’re able. Ken proposed here, and it holds a special place in our heart.

We got in late last night and threw together a quick dinner, then slept like the dead. This morning we had a delicious dinner with my dad, who is also up here, and then walked the property as he told us some of his plans.

So now here we are. One of our first lazy mornings – it’s 11:25am and I’m still in jammies and in the same place as we woke up. We’ll put our stuff together and mosey home within the next hour or so. . .  maybe.  

Overall, it’s been such a fantastic trip. I really couldn’t have asked for anything better. . . It feels weird to be ending this blog post. I feel like it should end with some great, exciting conclusion! Some super climatic ending! But this whole trip has been pretty low key. Very relaxing. Very refreshing. Very awesome.

I loved every minute of it, and I can’t wait for our next great adventure.

Signing off for now! Thanks for reading!!

Kenny’s Thoughts: The coast is way prettier than I expected! I’m really glad that we drove along it. Also, I had no idea that we had elk in California! That was a huge shock. But overall, I highly recommend the drive. It was beautiful and a lot of fun. I loved all the dogs! And I couldn’t be happier with the two parents of the upcoming litter – I really want one of their pups. All the bulldogs were freakin’ adorable, and were such characters. I’ve been around bulldogs along – just petting other peoples’ dogs – but it’s still surprising just how heavy they are for how small they are. But the trip couldn’t have made me more excited about getting a bulldog of our own! I’m sad the trip is over, but honestly I don’t think it could have been better. In reflection, I think that every leg of the trip was better than I expected – and I had pretty high hopes for a lot of the parts. I think my three favorite parts were the Zion river walk, exploring Yellowstone, and meeting all the bulldogs. I think that’s all my thoughts.