Travel Tips & Adventures

If you’ve seen the new Hiking for the Couch Potato website – http://hiking.forthecouchpotato.com – you’ve seen some images at the top of the page.

I promised to identify the images at the top of our new website.

Image number 1 is:  ta – dah  – drum roll -

Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, Oregon.

A monolith that juts 235 feet high above the long stretch of beach in Cannon Beach, Oregon, Haystack Rock seems to follow you in any direction wherever you are on the beach.  Birds and other creatures – especially humans – find it almost magnetic, but it is a protected site.  See our longer blog for more information – http://traveltipsandadventures.com/?p=1134

Return next week and we’ll identify our #2 image.

We hope you’ll visit our Hiking for the Couch Potato website – and maybe even consider buying a book!  Especially for those of you who know someone who really needs to get off the couch and get some activity in their life.

Have a great week, everyone!

San Felipe has become quite the hang-out for American and Canadian ex-patriots – or just, sometimes, visitors.  Although Rocky Point has a following, the name says a lot.  Rocky Point (Puerto Peñasco) has rocky beaches, but a lively repeat crowd. (more…)

Grab your passport!  We’re heading south to Mexico and the – sometimes – sleepy village of San Felipe. (more…)

Wander into the funky, eccentric, artfully scattered and humorous décor of Cranky Sue’s in Cannon Beach and you’ll find some chuckles and great food.

Why is Sue cranky? After all, she has a successful restaurant in its third year and is going national with her clam chowder, Caesar dressing and crab cakes. (more…)

Let’s face it, the name sounds like a disease. But, about two hundred years ago, Captain William Clark and his party came to the area now called Ecola State Park to salvage some whale oil and blubber they needed for survival. They also boiled seawater until they could gather enough to preserve food to make it back to the East Coast.

Inspiring scenery - the Pacific Coast with Haystack Rock is in the distance

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If Cannon Beach is like Scottsdale without water, then Seaside, Oregon is like an upscale Coney Island with all of its family amusements.

Lewis and Clark statue at "Prom" turnaround

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Think of Scottsdale on the ocean, less heat and no malls — You’ve got Cannon Beach on Oregon’s Pacific Coast.

An upscale beach community, Cannon Beach was the second resort town on Oregon’s coast. (Seaside was the first.) Art galleries, boutique shops, unique toy stores, candy makers and specialty restaurants abound.

Shops on Hemlock Street

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Continuing our travels in Oregon this week…

Jutting out of the Pacific Ocean on the beach at Cannon Beach, Oregon is the monolith called Haystack Rock. Like a magnet, it attracts birds, humans and the sea creatures that use it for shelter.

Haystack Rock and humans

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Just a few miles up the coastal road from the Sea Lion Caves (see yesterday’s blog) is Heceta Head Lighthouse. It is one of nine lighthouses on Oregon’s coast that were built to warn fishermen and other mariners of the dangerous shallows ahead.

Heceta Head Lighthouse - one of the most photographed locations in the world

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We traveled to the Sea Lion Caves, world renowned, and located 11 miles north of Florence on the coast of Oregon.  The caves are fascinating – the largest in the world, at 125 feet.

Sea Lion Caves

Although we couldn’t wait to visit the sea lions, no one told them.  They had decided to spend the day sunning themselves on a rock further up the coast.   (more…)