[random] How I spent my summer vacation, part 1: Beach

I must whole-heartedly recommend Arch Cape, OR as a vacation spot: near Seaside and Cannon Beach but secluded enough that you might think it was your own private beach (and forests - Oswald West State Park marks the south end of town). In no particular order, we have: Arch Cape (looking South). You can't see it when the JPEG is this size, but there's a creek at the base of that hill/ridge that forms the cape itself; this creek ran through the backyard of the rental property. The sole remaining arch of Arch Cape (looking South) - evidently as recently as the 1940s there were 3 or 4 such arches, some of them quite large. My impression is that the little 'haystack' rock on the right in the picture above was the base of an absolutely huge arch, while today we're left with this comparatively tiny (but still way cool) one: Aforementioned arch, looking North: Really great tidepools - these were south of the Arch, and were only accessible at low tide. It took us a couple of days to figure out a.) that they were there, along with this whole other 'hidden' beach and b.) how long we had before the tide came back in. We wouldn't have been cut off entirely, but it would have been a looooong walk back either along Hwy 101 and through a hightway tunnel or over some pretty steep hiking trails through the State Park: Heading back through the arch (for a sense of scale...): (I must confess that I took none of these pictures - all of these in all 3 pieces were taken by our friends, the Spencers...)