haystack rock

All photos available for print and licensing >

I feel in love with Oregon. I loved every minute we were there. I felt so at peace and calm during our whole road trip across the state, I would highly recommend it to anyone who’s considering visiting the Pacific Northwest.

The real reason we went was to celebrate my birthday and to visit a place we had never been to. Portland was a city that both Andrew and I had heard was a fun place to be but never been. But we also knew it was the place to be if you like good food and weird things. Both did not disappoint!

Since this was our first time visiting Oregon, we didn’t really know what to expect. We’ve been back for less than a month, I already know of somethings that I would do differently. With that said, we will be back again. Both Andrew and I left with the feeling of wanting to see and do more. But I think that’s the sign of an amazing trip. Prior to the trip, I did tons of research on the Oregon coast on Pinterest and asked some friends who I knew had visited before. Through my research, I quickly realized that Oregon is a very dog-friendly state. Minus Crater Lake that doesn’t allow dogs in most areas of the park, Frankie was allowed everywhere else we wanted to go. So we booked 3 plane tickets off we went!

Here is a recap of everything we did and the things I would do differently next time:

Day 1: Fly into Portland

We arrived early in the afternoon, grabbed our rental car and went straight to pick up the essentials: Blue Star Donuts. I know I don’t normally give food recommendations but if you like fancy donuts, then Blue Star is where you want to be. I’ll have another donut recommendation later on our trip that ended up being our favorite.

Click here to read more

All photos available for print and licensing >

By the way, I’m working on an Oregon road trip post with everything we did in the week we visited. Reflecting back on the trip, there were definitely a few things that I would have done differently and discussed that in the post. If you have any other questions about Oregon, please let me know. I’ll try my best to answer them.

In the meantime, I’ve been enjoying going through the images from the trip. It’s been sort of a slow process but I’ve been really happy with the results so far. Especially this one for some reason. By the time we arrived at Myers Creek Beach Viewpoint, the sun had already been up for a while. It wasn’t the middle of the day but we could definitely feel the heat from the sun. It made for harsh lighting conditions so I was a little bit hesitant to even attempt to edit this image. I remember being so excited about the water reflections in the sand that I started shooting right when I got out of the car. I captured this just steps away from the rental in the parking lot.  Although you can’t see any reflections, you can tell how glassy and still the water was. OMG

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/800th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 24-70mm lens.

All photos available for print and licensing >

We flew in and out of Portland and hit the ground running. Our first stop upon arrival was donuts, but as soon as we picked up the essentials, we made our way to Cannon Beach. LOL. Just an hour and a half from Portland but by the time we arrived at our hotel, I was exhausted. We spent a little time walking around the beach but it was mostly spent decompressing in our hotel.

So Andrew and I woke up early the next morning (while Frankie continued to sleep in the hotel) and made our way to Ecola State Park. While researching the Oregon trip, this seemed like the place to be to get a great overall view of Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock and it really was. I loved how peaceful it was in the morning and for a little while, we were the only ones there.

If I remember correctly, the tree on the left-hand side was a stand-alone tree and probably one of the biggest ones at the viewpoint. I captured this image while we were walking back to the car. I loved the way the branch was framing Haystack Rock. I’ll be sharing more images from this view soon because it was just so impressive. I just thought this one was an interesting one and slightly different from what you typically see at Ecola State Park.

My camera settings for this image are F10 at 1/320th sec and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.