Following this morning’s recap of our weekend, mostly centered around the Cannon Beach trip, here’s a sampling of pix.

Every time we go to Seaside or Cannon Beach, our first stop is always Mo’s for this lunch. Crab louie, shrimp-and-bean salad, and clam chowder. It’s unpretentious and certainly not the finest dining to be found in the area, but I’ve been going to Mo’s every time I visit the beach since I was a little squirt, so it satisfies some primal something-or-other.

Incidentally, photographic trickery has been used to disguise the reality that Lena’s crab louie is ENORMOUS, as in more than twice the size of my dainty little salad.

Our hotel had this charming little courtyard and it made a fella want to strip off and take a little dash through the fountain. Problem: fountain wasn’t big enough.

At the beach, everything looks like an insane person did the interior decorating. If you had furniture like this in the city people would avoid ever visiting your house, and if they ever accidentally saw it they’d probably try to avoid meeting you even on neutral ground. But near the ocean, it’s charming and makes you want to pick up a plastic bucket and go make a sand castle.

This isn’t a beautiful piece of photographic art or anything, but it proves we were about a block from the ocean. That’s the glowing white abyss at the end of this street!

No, seriously… this place is really beautiful, like crazy beautiful!

At the beach, everybody takes pictures of sunsets and Haystack Rock so I decided to show you what the rest of it looks like. This is “non-photogenic ordinary Oregon beachscape.”

When I said everybody takes pictures of Haystack Rock, I wasn’t kidding. Seriously.

There are lots of other cool rocks out in the water and nobody bothers taking pictures of them. These are some of the coolest rocks. I think the lighthouse in one of the Harry Potter movies is located on one of these. It’s hard to see the lighthouse in the picture.

I was totally kidding about the Harry Potter lighthouse.

Right at the edge of town there’s this nice, pastoral scene like something in Ireland. It makes me want to hunt a goose for dinner, or possibly take up peat farming.

Sometimes the tide uncovers these little estuaries and a temporary ecosystem happens. These birds are saying “Holy crap, there are anemones here and I’m eating three. There’s plenty for everybody, no shoving!” Then the tide covers it back up and it’s underwater for a while, and these seagulls have to swarm the tourists in the park and beg for little pieces of donut.

We rented these little 3-wheeled bikes called “Funcycles.” They’re like a Big Wheel for grown-ups and it was actually tremendous fun to haul ass down the beach on these things. Though most of the people we saw renting these things just sat still and took pictures of each other after they rode slowly for ninety seconds and got all out of breath. We zoomed seven miles down the beach to where it dead-ended, and back again.

If you go far enough, you start to see the landscape change. Way down south of Arch Cape (which is south of Cannon Beach) the cliff tops are no longer developed with $3 million houses. This is how I remember the beach cliffs looking when I was a kid.

… and …

When the Cannon Beach trip was over we drove south, through Manzanita and Rockaway Beach, and in places Hwy 101 rose way up high and revealed cool vistas.

Then we stopped in Tillamook and went on a tour of the Tillamook Cheese Factory, from which I live-posted some pix to my Facebook.

Those posts included references to Burgess Meredith (“Don’t forget the cheese” commercials) as well as the timeless quip, “don’t cut yourself on that cheese — it’s sharp!”

Aaaaaand… vacation over!