Let's talk about the PNW Coastline -

Shall we?

Again,  these will be in no particular order because 

 1] we packed a lot into each day

and 2] I don't have my travel notebook handy as I'm writing this post -

But y'all know we love light houses and will seek them out whenever we're on a coast - 

We traveled down the coast from Gig Harbor to 

Long Beach Washington where we saw one of the most beautiful beaches... 

a nice little walk from the hotels in town

  [but not too far to be doable -]

With gorgeous cotton candy clouds...

 

and a sunset to match - 

Our hotel was very urban chic - ha - with bare bones amenities in the room - They DID give us a fan to put in the window, which kept the room nicely cool during the evening. 

It also had free coffee and hot chocolate in the common area, as well as lots of games, puzzles, and even bikes to rent if we'd only had time to ride on the boardwalk -

 

The on-site restaurant had a killer breakfast with, you guessed it,

 

my favorite homemade pop tart! 

With lemon curd - Oh. My.

And we loved the view!

From there, we traveled down the coast - 

Just stopping along the way whenever something caught our attention

And of course...

 

searching out some of those elusive light houses - ha

 This one was closed - but we could walk a half mile

and peek at it through the trees - lol -

It also has some cool [very old] ammunition buildings along the path.

Craig noticed this nicely framed fern as we looked inside...

There were millions [and I'm not EVEN close to exaggerating] of wild blackberry plants along the roads - EVERY WHERE - much like our kudzu here in the South - 

If only we had blackberries instead! 

We also saw these signs all along the way...

Entering and leaving Tsunami Zones...

All. Day. Long. 

HAs our US Coast ever had a tsunami?

Loved stopping in Cannon Beach and having lunch at Ecola Seafood.

Yummy - 

And this bustling little town was SO MUCH busier than the quaint little town of Long Beach. It was hard to find a parking place, but they also had lots of public parking available... 

Another night we stayed near Depoe Bay - overlooking the Pacific -

SO wonderful!

[Y'all know we feel God's presence when we're close to His glorious ocean views!]

We had a couple of pods of whales for our entertainment. 

I'll try to post a video here

 but you might remember one I posted on FB while we were there.

Honestly - I'm not sure which video uploaded - ha. 
EDITED TO ADD: this video was actually taken from the Yaquina Lighthouse - 
thus all the other tourist talking around it -  
But you can see the whale right in the center of the video - Enjoy!

We had dinner on the deck and watched them until the sun went down -

Then is it was cool enough for a little fire 

[IN AUGUST]

before bedtime -  a little different than the toes in the sand 

photos we take along out Gulf Coast - ha.

The next morning we had breakfast on our deck

and enjoyed a little more whale watching before we packed up for the next adventure -  

[Again - extra glad I bought this slouchy sweater at Myers in Seattle 

since I didn't bring a coat - ha.] 

We got the obligatory photo with the haystack rock along the way - ha.

 

And we meandered on to the Yaquina Head Lighthouse 

before heading back inland -

 Still loving our little super-zoom cameras!

This was such a beautiful lighthouse!

There was a little walk out to it - 

A VERY smelly walk since the seagulls [again with lipstick - ha] 

seem to enjoy it as much as the humans do! 

There were gorgeous views going and coming!

And of course, the light itself - 

just stunning!

We loved being on the coast - and we took our time and stopped at many places along the way - a glass blowing shop [with impromptu workshops,] Dutch Brothers Coffee [yum!,] a Goodwill Boutique [who knew GW could be so fancy?] 

And stops along the coast to just enjoy the views -

And lastly, eating breakfast at the Sea Hag [bar turned breakfast spot in the a.m.] was a treat. Again - right across the road from the water - just a beautiful area!

We might just have to go back with Annie Lee the Argosy -