I didn't have anything to do on Saturday so I drove down to the coast to suck down the last fleeting whiffs of summertime. The ocean was-a sparklin', the surfers were out and the sky was clear all the way to the horizon.

Now here are some snapshots from the trip that have little to with the ocean, the sky or, for the most part, the beach itself.

Look! A slug! A big slug! A big, big slug! I found this guy in the middle of the path leading down to Short Sands. Exciting!

Short Sands now has a suspension bridge that serves as the beginning of a long trail to Nehakanie Mountain. Earlier in the summer I encountered an older hippie couple at the parking lot near the mountain's north trailhead. They had hiked over the bridge and down the entire stretch leading to the mountain, up to the peak and back down again. They were so exhausted by the time they reached the 101 that they were trying to hitchhike back to their car at Short Sands. Being a cynical bloke who grew up on the mean streets of SW Portland, I wasn't willing to drive them myself, especially since they could have been packing guns in their fanny packs. You can never be too careful. I gave them my Gatorade and offered to lend them my cell phone though. What would you have done?

I have no idea how long the "UFO house" has been sitting on the shores of Cannon Beach but it obviously hails back to the days when the community was known more for arts and crafts than $1.5 million beach cabins. With the exception of the mini-Xanadu at the end of the beach with 3-story curtains that never open, I think it's the most interesting place visible from the shoreline.

Wait, not even the starfish? But they're the most fun to step on! Aww, phooie! You nature conservationists are l-a-m-e with a capital "L" that won't emphasize here because I don't roll like that. The next thing you'll tell us is that it's somehow *wrong* to feed seagulls Alka Seltzer tablets while tossing empty Milwaukie's Best cans all over the place! What nerve. Sheesh.

On a not-at-all related note, I visited a public beach in LA a few summers back. The entire stretch had trashcans every 50 yards, which no one seemed interested in using. The amount of trash I noticed on Cannon Beach after hiking from one end to Haystack Rock? Zero. Not even a single cigarette butt.