A little more hiking

Last night we completely overate at Castaways, and we both woke up this morning not hungry. This was sad because it was supposed to be our Pig’n morning and neither of us had any interest in going there. Instead, we started our day with a nice walk. We were able to go north by crossing Ecola Creek close to the ocean without getting our feet soaked, which is unusual. We walked about halfway to the end of the beach, then climbed up the dune and walked down 5^th street to Les Shirley Park. Both google maps and alltrails show a trail on the creek side of the park that goes up to the bridge; both google maps and alltrails are wrong, as we were to find out after hiking along the creek through the tall wet grass and coming to an uncrossable stream. We explored the Sea Ranch RV park a bit – is it possible for an outdoors location to smell like old cooking oil? – and decided we won’t be staying there. We walked back along the creek to 2^nd street and back to the hotel. Then we had our last bit of relaxing and also packing, and I ate the last poptarts.

We wanted to do one more hike but were having trouble finding one that appealed to us (read, didn’t climb up and over anything) and both of us had been looking at one called the Ecola Creek hike. We decided to try it. It takes off from near Midtown on the east side of 101, and is through the Cannon Beach watershed. It’s just lovely, a combination of trails and logging roads, with very little elevation change. It doesn’t have any views but winds its way through lush ferns and big trees. And it also has a water treatment plant.  It's part of a larger network and we are looking forward to doing more exploring.

After the hike we went back to town, and by some miracle there was a space in the Pig’n parking lot and no line! We have nailed our ordering – I get 3 pigs in blankets, Dave gets eggs & bacon with toast and hashbrowns, and then we trade one of my pigs&blankets for one of his bacons and we are both happy and not too stuffed.

Town seemed really crowded but we were able to get a perfect shady spot in the back lot for one last shopping trip; new Birkenstocks for Dave, a last sample of Bruce’s taffy, and smokked fish for tonight’s pasta dinner.  The whole time we were thinking we should stop at Schooner’s cove and see if we could get one more night, but we’re leaving Wednesday for Bend and felt like we should really head home. So we did!

And that’s the end.

OK it's not the end. Here are two more pictures from our hike. I am crossing a bridge. We don't know why there is a mason jar in a tree trunk though.