8 things that are pretty great about the North Oregon Coast

Today, I took a trip to Warrenton to retrieve my daughter. What a nice day for a lovely drive. Here are 8 things that are good about that part of Oregon:

* Dooger's clam chowder: Dooger's , which started as a small cafe in Seaside, has expanded to Long Beach, Cannon Beach, and Warrenton. With expansion has come more than a little pretense, and the rest of their fired-seafood menu is no better than anyone else's. But the chowder. The chowder has magical powers, I swear. I think they use some sort of unicorn dust in it. It is that good. So good, it's almost dessert.

* The weather: We all know I enjoy the heat. But I also appreciate damp and cold... because then I don't look ridiculous in a sweater. Plus, no one does their hair on the coast... Why bother?

* The festivals: You don't have to travel far to bump into a festival. It seems like a different reason for vendors' rows each weekend. There is the garlic festival, seafood and wine festival, crab festival, regatta, kite festival, slug festival, festival of festivals....

* The drinking water on highway 26: Okay, technically, this isn't on the coast, but it's on the way to the coast: On either side of highway 26, about halfway between Portland and Seaside, there are two spring-fed water spigot/ drinking fountains. Today, we waited while a Moses-ish man filled about ten 5-gallon water drums and loaded them into his 4Runner. Then, we filled our 2 quart bottles with the clear, cold, sweet mountain water and marvelled at it all the way home.

* The water: The coast has water everywhere. Rivers, bays, and, obviously, an ocean. Here in the valley, I miss all the water. We've just got this one river that everyone seems to ignore.
Fun fact: The Willamette river flows south-to-north. That's up the map. Weird, huh?

* Sleeping on the coast: Most bedrooms on the coast lie near highway 101 or the ocean. many of them are hotel rooms. If you want to sleep with the window open in a cheap hotel room close to the highway, you can pretend the highway noise is the surf.

* Astoria: Astoria is enjoying a renaissance of sorts. They seem to have the correct ratio of hippie weirdos to rednecks that makes a town interesting.

* The Nutcracker: Every year, we try to go see Little Ballet Theater's production of The Nutcracker at Astoria high school. It is an impressive student production. The sets are beautiful, the costumes are nice, and the dancing is good. In the past couple years, they have added a live orchestra, which is nice to have for a ballet.