Our journey from Newport, OR to Crescent City, CA was supposed to be about 4.5 hours but with so many beautiful beaches and viewpoints along the way, how could we just zoom past all of it?
Our first stop was Seal Rock, a cozy beach with massive stones coming out of the water, almost looking like a serpent's back. Some people were climbing on the rocks, but we avoided risk. Maybe one day I'll return and climb it myself. I think that the most amazing part of this attraction, though, was the tide pools further down the beach.
These tide pools were shaped by the water creating sharp crevices in the sand and smaller rocks poking out of the beach and allowing water to flood over them, creating tiny waterfalls. In these pools, I found plenty of green sea anemones (my mom called them mushrooms), purple starfish, and rocks covered in barnacles and mussels. So many mussels. My mom's mouth was watering.
I could have played in those tide pools for longer and tried to find more and more sea creatures, but with a 4.5 hours drive ahead of us, time was of the essence. We continued forth.
We stopped at several viewpoints along the way to enjoy the coastal view, especially since it was amazing to see these stone formations way out in the ocean. We took a break from rocks to see the Oregon sand dunes, a phenomenon that I was excited for after seeing the sand dunes at San Luis Obispo. These Oregon sand dunes were very different, though, because they were covered in plants and not as dramatically tall. I think I prefer the ones in SLO more than the Oregon ones, but it was fun to see sand dunes of some form again.
The other major stopping point we had was Bandon, OR. The town was really cute, but the view was even cuter. Granted, these were more rocks, but this one rock named Table Rock totally had my heart. The town mascot was a puffin because hundreds of puffins just sat on the Table Rock making the ugliest, yet adorable, noises I have ever heard from birds. I just wanted to hug a puffin. The viewpoint we went to in order to see these rock formations reminded me a lot of San Luis Obispo's Montana de Oro. It brought good and bad feelings.
We finally settled in Crescent City where we stayed at a very cute and roomy inn. This was the last night of food that we had packed, so it was relieving to make space in the car for what would undoubtedly be a lot of stuff to pack.