Cannon Beach in Oregon

After walking through the park and viewing the waterfalls in Oregon's Silver Falls State Park, we head over to the Pacific Ocean and stop at Cannon Beach, named one of the world's 100 most  beautiful places by National Geographic.  The stunning coastline, fabulous sandy beaches, and views of Haystack Rock offer an incredible experience.

First views of the beach

Haystack Rock is one of the most recognized landmarks on the Oregon Coast and is known for its fabulous natural landscape, abundant wildlife, accessible tide pools, and use as a filming location for movies such as The Goonies and Kindergarten Cop.  The rock is a nesting area for many seabirds, including the tufted puffin.

Haystack Rock

Walking the beach

Tide coming in

As the sun sets over the Pacific Ocean, the sky lights up, Haystack Rock stands out, and visitors build fires on the beach to counter the crisp evening air.

Sunset

Beach bonfires

After sunset, we wander down the street to find dinner of baked halibut and seafood stew, then return to our hotel to sleep and stroll the beach again in the morning.

Baked halibut, seafood stew

Morning stroll on the beach

What a great place!

Silver Falls State Park in Oregon - Trail of Ten Falls

Silver Falls State Park is the largest park in the Oregon State Parks system (9,000 acres, 3,642 hectares) and features one of the most impressive waterfall day hikes in the US.  There are ten waterfalls on the 7.8 mile (12.6 km) loop, many of which the path goes behind, in addition to more than 35 miles (56 km) of backcountry trails for mountain biking, hiking, or horseback riding (beware the bears and cougars living in the more remote park areas).  We're exploring a little of Oregon and head over to hike the fails

We park and walk toward the first falls, Upper North Falls.

Upper North Falls

Backtracking, we start down Canyon Trail, descending into the canyon and looping past the other waterfalls, starting with the first one that we can walk behind, North Falls.

Descending to the canyon floor

North Falls

View from behind the falls

Continuing along the trail, we reach Twin Falls, then Middle North Falls, another we can walk behind.

Continuing along the canyon floor

Twin Falls

Middle North Falls

We then pass Drake Falls, Double Falls, and Lower North Falls.

Drake Falls

Double Falls

Lower North Falls

After Lower North Falls, a bridge takes us across the water and we follow the stream to Lower South Falls (again walking behind the falls) and then up from the canyon floor toward  South Falls.

Crossing the bridge and continuing along the stream

Lower South Falls

South Falls

We follow the trail up from South Falls and walk along the stream leading to the falls back to the parking lot for

The top of South Falls

As we get to then end, we realize that our fall count is nine.  We missed Winter Falls which is down a separate Winter Falls Trail.  But, we've still seen many great waterfalls and had a spectacular hike with  an incredibly scenic few hours, especially actually walking behind many of the falls and viewing them from a different perspective.

Branzino

In our trips this year to Monterosso al Mare in Cinque Terre, we  observed the Ligurian cooking class at Hotel Villa Steno and learned to make an incredible branzino (and also fabulous pesto).  We bring our new skills home and purchase filleted branzino at Pike Place Market while we are in Seattle, carry them home, and prepare a great dish with the branzino, roasted potatoes, and trofie with pesto.

We start with branzino fillets in a pan with olive oil and garlic cloves.  We then prepare a mixture of olive oil, lemon juice, and oregano which we pour over the fish and then cover with olives and capers.  We add rosemary and bay leaves and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

Branzino fillets

Ready for the oven

For the potatoes, we thin slice Yukon Gold potatoes with a mandoline food slicer, layer them in a sheet pan, and cover them with olive oil, salt, and pepper.  We pop them in the oven with the branzino and prepare trofie with pesto using trofie pasta and the pesto sauce that we made from our basil plants (and grated Parmesan cheese, grated Romano cheese, toasted pine nuts, salt, and olive oil),

Potatoes ready for baking

Trofie mixed with the pesto

Dinner is ready!

This is a simple, but fabulous meal and we'll enjoy it many times.