i can take a lot of picture in 24 hours.

cannon beach, oregon. 2010 spring break trip. :)

as usual, we were at the beach for about 24 hours, taking advantage of free lodging in the cottage that my parents use when my dad teaches at ecola bible school.

we expected it to rain the whole day; instead, we enjoyed beautiful sunshine and mild temperatures!
joel has been bugging me to try geocaching with him for a while, so on friday we found a local geocache and set out on a nerdy adventure!
WARNING: i am posting photo documentation of this adventure, so if you ever plan to do the geocache at ecola state park, stop reading.

it took a while for joel to get the program working on his phone, but eventually we set out ...
first stop ... it took us a while to realize that we had to solve a code to get our next set of coordinates from this sign. i took many pictures of the sign, and i'm not really sure why.
back in the car, coordinates inputted. we almost drove out of the park before realizing that our destination was a 50 yard walk from the animal sign.
second stop ...
we were delayed in accessing the information on this plaque by a lingering pair of ladies who seemed to have nothing better to do than look at this view.
we dodged the whale watchers and patiently drank in the beauty for a couple minutes before my impatience took over and i edged in to collect the second set of coordinates.

this is where things broke down a bit. we hiked into the ecola state park forest for our final destination, but hit a snag: a creek with little cliffs on either side.
backtracking, we resumed our hunt. as the meters ticked down on joel's phone, we encountered a herd of elk in our way. and elk droppings.
our dilemma: they stood directly between us and our goal.

we tried to circle the elk, making lots of noise. they didn't want to move much, but obligingly backed a little way into the forest.

we pressed on, repeating the clue for our destination - simon&garfunkel's "bridge over troubled water". joel spotted a small log crossing a boggy creek, and trotted over to it, singing. he stepped confidently on the small bridge, which promptly broke and deposited him in 4 inches of muck. clue fail.
we crossed the boggy creek without further incident, and, having driven the elk herd away, were within 25 meters of our goal. excited to reach our first geocache, we bounded over the last hill and were treated to this view ...
our geocache, guarded by no less than 6 huge, wary elk (probably irritated from being driven so far already).

i suppose technically our first attempt was a failure, if you call the thrill of observing a herd of wild elk from less than fifty feet a failure. we will definitely be geocaching more, but next time maybe we'll bring weapons.

the rest of the day was slightly less eventful. we had lunch at a cute new cafe in cannon beach with mom, who had had a very painful abscessed tooth and would not appreciate me posting pictures.
a yarn shop in cannon beach ...
a fun bead shop that made me want to take up beading ...
and a visit to hug point, where mom took these pictures of us.

we hardly ever have pictures of both of us, so it's super fun to get some nice ones!

the sun was warm, the breeze soft, and the tide low. we made our way up the beach toward the old highway, me with my camera, mom frolicking in the waves, and joel and pop calculating how to navigate the points without getting their shoes wet.
i spent some quality time with my beloved seagulls. :)

coming back from the highway, i was wet to my waist, mom past her knees, joel to his ankles, and pop not at all. at least, not until his miscalculation stranded him on a rock with one foot in the ocean. heh heh.
beach trip success.