Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 39: Beverly Beach and Otter Rock

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Now, we're on the northbound leg out of Newport on Hwy 101 and the going-home energy is gathering. I didn't know it quite yet, but it was there.

There are a number of just-offshore rocks along the beach just north of the Yaquina Head promontory. They're visible as you tool past on 101, and a good place to look at them is at the state recreation area just in that area, Beverly Beach.

This is a beach access I know of from little-kid time, and it has changed greatly. Yurts didn't exist then, it it has one; we walked past it after we used the toilet. It looked comfortable. Oh, and public toilet there? Immaculate. Highly recommended. 

Coming into the area, you roll up to a manned pay station and sort of a gatehouse. The day-use area is, however, free and that's where we were here. There's a little arched bridge, totally Oregon State Park style, over this small stream, which is called Spencer Creek. Getting to the beach is quick and easy as going under that McCullough-esque bridge you see in the picture above.

I took the opportunity to zoom in on that rock just off-shore through the bridge arch.

That little mesa out there just beyond the surf is the eponymous thing that eponymed the adjacent community of Otter Rock - that is to day, it is Otter Rock. 

I didn't find if there're any otters on it that day, though. I was pleased just to be able to look. 

Sur La Mer (Our 31st Anniversary) Part 2: Scenes From Tolovana Park

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Our destination this day, as mentioned, was Cannon Beach: artistic, rustic, adorable Cannon Beach.

Like many towns along the Oregon Coast, it's longer than it is wide; it stretches along about two miles of beach but only goes back maybe about 1,000 feet at its widest. Address-Nerd-wise, this is how a town with only about 2,500 residents can have a 4000 block. 

Anyway. the best place to have a look outside of downtown is the south-side neighborhood called Tolovana Park, which amounts to the half of town south of the knobby hill just south of the downtown area. There one finds the Tolovana Beach State Wayside, which is merely steps from the sand.

It's quite a popular place.

Oregonians at the beach doing what Oregonians at the beach do. In the distance are a group of rocks at a small promontory called Silver Point; the biggest one is called Jockey Cap.

They're gorgeous, but they don't quite compare with the icon you see looking the other way.

It's 230 feet worth of iconic seastack, and they call it, for obvious reasons, Haystack Rock. If there's a rock that can stand in for the entire Oregon Coast, this surely must be a candidate.

The small rocks off to the left of it are collectively known as The Needles. And in front are two more Oregonians doing what Oregonians do at the beach.

Here now a more postcard-y approach that I'm quite proud of:

I took many many pictures of the rock because I have had none up until now and I was atoning for that. 

Another thing I took many pictures of was surf, for surf's sake. They say you can't hear a picture but I know the sound that resonates in the skull when I look at this one: 

Surf is a magical thing, even if you don't ride the waves. 

The glassy sheen of wet beach is its own poetry.