I’ve been trying to cram in as much socializing and PNW adventuring as I can before I head back to Colorado. One thing on my list was for dogdog to have a chance to swim in the ocean, so yesterday we took a trip to Cannon Beach. It was a gorgeous day – 70 degrees and clear skies. The complete opposite of the last time I went to the coast. Dogdog, my friend Carla, and I headed out from Portland to Cannon Beach, enjoyed lunch at Ecola Seafood, spent a couple hours walking along the shore, headed down Highway 101 to Tillamook, stopped to eat a million samples of cheese, wine, and other snacks at Blue Heron, and ate at Tillamook’s new (and probably only) taco truck. It was a good day, and now my nice new car is full of sand. My nose is sunburned, and I took approximately fifty hours of video and one million pictures.

Dogdog has enjoyed swimming before, but that was a long time ago, and in a small lake at the dog park. I wasn’t sure if she’d like the ocean, be scared of it, try to swim and get sucked out into the waves (thought about this option a little too much and made her wear her hiking harness with its big easy-grab handle in case I needed to rescue her), or just generally not care. It turned out to be a little bit of all those things. She loved rolling in the sand, and in the smelly washed up ocean detritus. The first time the water touched her feet, she ran away. But then she started chasing sticks into the tiny waves and everything was fine. She flopped down in the shallows and tried to eat the crests of water ripples as they went by, which seems to be standard dogdog fun-time behavior (she does the same thing in fountains). And we played several rousing rounds of throw a stick-watch the stick get sucked away because dogdog’s maximum speed is slower than the pull of the waves-laugh while dogdog flops in the water trying to find the stick-the stick washes right back to our feet while dogdog is still out in the water searching for it-repeat. It was a fun game. In fact, I think she partied a little too hard – she’s napping harder than usual today.

Haystack Rock

My favorite beach house.

ma·jes·tic. məˈjestik/. Having or showing impressive beauty or dignity. See also: this image.

Post rolling in tons of sand.

In the parking lot of our Blue Heron cheese stop. The petting zoo sign was inconclusive, so we pet some things anyway.

Sorry guy, we don’t have any snacks for you.

Lots of chickens and an… emu? ostrich?

Mustard samples? Yes, please!