Nehalem Bay State Park, Oregon

    I am so excited.  One of my lifelong dreams has been to drive the Pacific Coast Highway 101.  Today we drove just 20 miles of it to get to our campground.  Even that little bit was full of awesome views of the ocean.  Our campground is just over the dunes from a sweeping sandy beach.  Oh, it is heaven!  Our trailer is tucked into some scrubby beach pines.  We can hear the waves and the wind in the trees, but it is sunny and warm in our little nook.

    This is a busy weekend for the campground.  Family groups with a big assortment of tents, camping trailers, and RVs.  Lots of folks have hung a canopy over their picnic table to keep this morning's rain off.  However, the sun is shining now and is supposed to keep on shining all week.  Temps in the high 60s at the beach.  A little cool to swim, but I have already been wading.

     We spent time on the beach and then back at the campsite sitting in the sunshine.  After dinner we went to a Ranger program to learn about some cannons found on the beach in 2006.  They appear to be from a ship which was sent to participate in the dispute over the Oregon border - 54'40' or Fight.  However the ship - the U.S.S. Shark - sank while attempting to cross the Columbia River bar in 1846.  The Coast Guard has two advanced training schools located at the mouth of the Columbia River due to its severe bar and surrounding surf conditions.  There are over 2000 recorded shipwrecks in this area.  It has yet to be proved that the canons are from the U.S.S. Shark, but the canons are in the process of being restored and may have more clues to their history.  A replica of the canon will be fired on the 4th of July at Nehalem Bay.