Oregon - mostly

 On previous trips to Oregon, we've gone along the coast and made it as far north as the Tillamook area then skipped through to Astoria and into Washington. Now, as we head down the Washington state coast, this is the perfect time to visit the remainder of the northern Oregon coast. Homebase here will be Fort Stevens State Park in Hammond, OR. 

Fort Stevens has a couple of places of interest including the wreck of the Peter Iredale, a ship that ran ashore in 1906. Beautiful day for pictures...

The park also has several fortified artillery batteries that were built to protect the Columbia River. Fort Stevens has the distinction of being the only United States fort that was fired upon during World War II, when it was attacked by a Japanese submarine in 1942. 

On another day, we took a drive down the coast to Cannon Beach. It's a small town with a relatively flat downtown, but most of the houses are built on steep hillsides. 

The beach itself is a gorgeous, long, wide beach.

 The one downside we found was the difficulty in finding parking if you want to access the less crowded area of the beach.

From here, we're heading east to see Walla Walla, but along the way, we stop at Memaloose State Park. We stopped here once before, and I did not have good memories of this place. The park has I-84 on one side and railroad tracks on the other. Our last campsite split the distance, but the traffic noise was overwhelming. This time around, our campsite was near the railroad tracks (as far away from I-84 as we could get). What a difference; it was a wonderful stay! 

We continue along the Columbia River until it heads north. At that point, we head east into Washington where our next stop will be Walla Walla. We end up spending four days in Walla Walla, where we made ourselves a tasty dinner of pork tenderloin with pineapple salsa, rice and asparagus.  Tom found a great active & friendly pickleball community with 6 recently built & beautiful dedicated pickleball courts. 

Walla Walla also has a quaint little downtown with a couple of tempting restaurants. We chose to have a nice breakfast at the Maple Counter Cafe, where we had a nice outside table to watch this little corner of the world go by.