HotelChatter

The company manages four "hotels" and rentals; I had rented us a suite at The Oceanspray. Even though we were on a quiet side street, and the suite we had was delightful - the bed cozy and roomy, the bathroom with hot tub and skylight, a groovy little kitchenette, a tiny outdoor deck with table and chairs, and a TV over the tub so my husband could splash in the water and watch the ballgame while I got my HGTV fix - I was still colossally disappointed that this was not a beachfront accommodation. Having had the ocean appear fairly large in our many windows at The Overleaf Lodge had spoiled us.

But it didn't take long for the disappointment to pass - and eventually I had to admit that this room was even better than six windows facing the ocean. No walking through a dull lobby, riding down an elevator, saying hi to your neighbors, listening to the drone of an ice machine. It's just you and another suite, and that's it. Go out the door, walk ten paces, and you're on the beach. It's that simple.

This is not just any beach - it's an endless, boundless, photographed-repeatedly, bigger-than-life, wider-than-you-can count beach, and stuck right in the center is the 238-foot monster known as Haystack Rock.

Sure, you're thinking. It's a rock. But it's so much more than that.

In the mornings and afternoons, we walked Cannon Beach, looking at the houses, admiring the lifestyle of this most charming Pacific Coast beach town. We cruised past two elk nibbling on bushes on our way to spy on the wet-suited surfers on the other side of the cove. We watched the kites and the pelicans soar in the wind. A line of horseback riders ambled by. Dogs and their owners romped in the sand. And when we were ready to circle back, it was never far to our temporary home on the beach.

At night, guests, residents, partiers, and kids came onto the beach to light fires, drink beer, stargaze, and apparently make a lot of s'mores.  (No kidding: An entire section of the local market was stocked with skewers, marshmellows, chocolate, and graham crackers.) We found an abandoned and nearly dead fire in a firepit and stoked it back to life for hours with found driftwood. If that's doing as the locals do, I want much, much more of it.

"From this point I beheld the grandest and most pleasing prospects which my eyes ever surveyed, in my frount a boundless Ocean... the coast as far as my sight could be extended." So wrote Lewis and Clark when they sighed, and were nearly at a loss for words when first beholding the beauty of this beach.

It seemed only fitting that our Oregon trip was ending in the same area that the Corps of Discovery ended their journey. We sighed, as well, knowing this area has remained as wild and magnificent, as grand and pleasing today as it was for them, two centuries ago.

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· Oregon Hotel Guide [HotelChatter]