Tuesday, June 12, 2012

CANNON BEACH

Saturday, June 9 – After we got our site set up at Nehalem State Park, we headed for Cannon Beach.

Lots of people flying kites.lots of kites on the beach

Cannon Beach is having their annual Sand Castle Festival today. Signs directed us off Coastal-101 for parking. What we didn't realize was the Festival was over two miles down the beach from our parking spot. Oh well, the exercise will do us good.

Families enjoying the beach.lots of people on the beach

The festival wasn't quite as large as we imagined, but it was nice. We didn't get to see any on the construction (We were late arriving.), but we did get to enjoy the finished products before the kids and the waves flattened them.

Here are some examples of the entries.

This was our favorite. Catch the name.Ship happens

Reining Cats and Dogs. This one had lots of detail on the dogs and cats.
Reining Cats and Dogs

This one was a strange one. We didn't get it.strange one

The winner is…
winner

Have no idea why this one was the winner, but what do we know about judging sand castles.

We also got to photograph the famous Haystack Rock from every possible angle.

Haystack Rock

This is a 235-monolith, one of the largest of  its kind in the world. the Rock is home to nesting seabirds in the summer and marine invertebrates all year long.

nesting birds

There are several needles on the left side of the Rock.needles

Some of the homes along the beach.
homes along beach

We watched a paraglider float along the beach on our walk back to the car.

paraglider

After driving down highway 101 for quite a ways, we saw the same fellow floating along on the air currents coming off the cliffs.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!