While staying in Tillamook, OR, we took a short drive to the coast to see the Cape Meares Lighthouse.  It’s right at the edge of a cliff at the shoreline and so isn’t very tall.  It was an important location as there are many rocks in the surf that could cause damage to ships.

We were able to drive to about ¼ mile from the lighthouse and park.  Then, it’s a short walk out to the edge to see the lighthouse.  It was sloped down which meant sloping up to get back to the truck but Laddy (who isn’tsupposed to exert himself due to his heart condition) managed it very well.  On the walk back we took it slow and stopped several times.

The lighthouse wasn’t open, no tours or brochures or anything.  But I looked it up on the internet and found that it was the most powerful and brightest lighthouse in the late 1800.  So much so, that birds were getting disoriented by the bright light and hurting themselves running into the cliffs.  The lighthouse was changed to be not quite as bright which made it less of a danger to the birds.

There are often nesting birds on the rocks or cliffs and this is apparently a great place to see whales, but we didn’t see anything.  Wrong time of the year I guess.  But the walk was pretty, the lighthouse interesting and the shoreline with all the rocks was great.  One cluster of very large rocks had two small arches down at the water level.  The arches were so perfect it almost looks like they were manmade rather than made from the pounding surf against the rock.

There’s another attraction right near the lighthouse, Octopus Tree.  It was an uphill walk so we didn’t go to it, but I included a picture of it I got from the internet.  It’s a really unusual looking Sitka spruce.

Here are pictures: