Oh my goodness guys. I won't write this whole post in one sitting because I'm sitting in the airport and only have half an hour of free internet, but I'll at least get this started. I'm heading home after spending a couple of days in New York City. The purpose of the trip was to see Hamilton- major success. Y'all should be jealous and my life is awesome. I'll have a post about it later, but for right now, I'm going to write as much as I can before my time is up.
Day #5 started bright and early. Earlier than my companions wanted it to, but I knew we had a lot to fit in. We headed out of the hotel and ended up at a Insomnia Coffee Company for breakfast and the all-so-necessary coffee. The best way I can describe this place is hipster. Put whatever on the wall/ sit wherever/ drink hipster things that you're just getting to say the hipster names. Pro-tip: Just stick with plain old coffee. It gets the job done. But it was good. Next, we headed to the coast.
I have to admit something here. It was raining really hard at this point, and I was getting pretty bummed. I had imagined a sunny day driving down the coast, and I don't love driving in the rain. Can I? yes. Do I love it? uh.... no. We went for about an hour til we reached Tillamook. We stopped at the Tillamook cheese factory. Their slogan? "Don't run with our cheddar, it's really sharp" heheheheheh. Mostly, this was an excuse to get out of the car, but it had a cute self-tour and yummy samples. We debated getting a pint of ice cream to split, but A. it was only like 9 in the morning B. anybody who knows me well knows that you shouldn't split food with me. I eat like the food might disappear any moment and mostly just inhale food. I've been working on this but still have a ways to go. Pro-tip: Don't share food with Caroline. You won't get any. 
Back into the rain we went. Our route was highway 101 down the entire coast. I forgot to tell you earlier that for the entirety of the trip, we played a game called "My cow". I'm not sure if that's the actual name, but that's basically what it is. You see a herd of cows? You call out, "my cows!" Same goes for horses, llamas, parrots, platypuses, armadillos, whatever. Along this drive, I got a LOT of cows. That's the only reason I'm telling you this. I totally won this game. Pro-tip: If you want to win a game of 'my cow', you should drive so you see everything first. So anyway, it was still raining, and I was bummed. I was determined to have a good attitude, so I stopped in a random town and forced my poor, long-suffering companions out into the rain to stop at this little visitor's center. We walked into the room, and there was a guy sitting by the window. The first words out of his mouth were, "Come over here, you're about to see a whale." We walked over, he pointed, and sure enough- within a couple of minutes we saw our first gray whale. It didn't jump out of the water or anything like that, but we saw the spout of water and the tail. The nice man gave us a commemorative sticker for spotting our first whale. I still have it attached to my toiletries bag just in case anyone was wondering. This was not the only friendly park ranger person that day, but he asked us about our plans and where we were headed. He recommended a beach for us with some tide pools and told us when the low tide was so we could get the best experience. I swear that God was on our side that day because the timing was going to work out perfectly. We saw the whale come up another time or two and started back down the coast.Our goal was Low tide was at 1:45, and we had some time to spare, so we had lunch at a buffet overlooking the Pacific Ocean because why not? We arrived Yaquina Head Beach at the perfect time, and lo! It was migratory bird day, so we didn't have to pay for parking! (I got to this point when my internet ran out. Just so ya know. Starting over now.) On a normal day, stopping in the visitor's center would have been very dull. On migratory bird day, it is quite a different story. There were educational activities galore, but more importantly, there were enthused park rangers who were ecstatic that three young people had innocently just walked in. One of them literally jumped up and down. We played a migratory bird game to appease them and got a stamp commemorating the event. One ranger asked if he could put a stamp on my cheek. I politely declined. Pro-tip: It's worth it to spend 5 minutes playing a migratory bird game if it makes someone's day. Live a little.
Tide pools = perfection. God's amazing creation is so evident in everything, but so easy to see when the tide goes out and leaves behind tiny ecosystems to explore. There was Oregon's tallest lighthouse up on the bluff, harbor seals out on the rocks, birds on the water, and no rain. We spent a long time exploring the tide pools. You're allowed to touch everything except the starfish. There are sea urchins and starfish and tiny fish and crabs and things with tentacles and things with spikes and spongy things and oysters and clams all in crystal clear pools. It was unanimously our favorite activity of the entire trip.
I give up on formatting this thing. It does not love me. You can just see pictures in any order because they don't want to go where I want them to go. Know that I've had good intentions.
After we dragged ourselves away, we spent the rest of the afternoon driving. The lower third of highway 101 is right along the coast. You pull around the corner and there's the ocean right there. Our reaction every time was, 'Wow.' There are huge rocks left in the ocean from erosion and the sun had come out just in time. Imagine a movie where the characters drive down the road in a convertible with the sun setting over the ocean- that was us- except we had James instead of a convertible. We stopped for dinner at a state park close to California. I don't even remember why we picked that beach, but it was perfect. There was no one there, but there was a log for us to sit on. The sun was setting, the waves were crashing, and it was perfect.
Our next AirBnb was in California because neither Nikki or Rachel had made it there. It was literally a few hundred feet away from the beach. The hosts provided chairs for us to go and sit after our long day. They also provided pancake mix for breakfast the next morning.
Breakdown of day 5:
Favorite moment: Tidepools
Least favorite moment: Rainy driving
Bonding moment: Getting soaked by the Pacific Ocean
Costs:
- Breakfast $5
- Lunch $15
I got really lazy with this post because the pictures would NOT go where I wanted them to and I got frustrated. Rawr. Luckily, the pictures speak louder than I do, so you can see it was gorgeous and all that. If you're going to spend a day doing anything, I would highly recommend driving down the Oregon coast. Thanks for playing.
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