The broad canvas of Cannon Beach, Oregon has tempted many an amateur sand castle architect, and once a year, sand sculptors gather here to celebrate their art.

You’re invited to join the festivities at the 2012 Cannon Beach Sand Castle Contest over the weekend of June 8 – 10, 2012. Spectators are welcome to watch the sculptors create not only castles, but also sea creatures, international landmarks, scenes from fairy tales, and other impressive expressions of creativity. You can try your own hand at shaping sand by signing up in one of seven sand-sculpting divisions, from “Sand Fleas” (open to anyone under age six) to “Sand Masters” (open by invitation to sculptors who have won awards in previous events).

Sculptors have about five hours to create their works, from 7am to noon on Saturday, June 9, during low tide. At noon, winners in each division will be announced, and by 6pm, high tide will erase the sculptures, so that Cannon Beach once again provides a blank canvas to aspiring sculptors.

Although the sand sculptures are the highlight of the weekend, visitors will find plenty of other activities to keep them busy. On Friday is the Shovels ‘n’ Buckets dinner at Tolovana Inn from 6pm – 9pm, featuring $5 buckets of spaghetti, clam chowder, and salad.

Saturday begins with a pancake feed at the American Legion, followed by the sand castle build on the beach. The United States Coast Guard will stage a flyover at noon. In the afternoon, explore the many art galleries in downtown and midtown Cannon Beach during an Art Gallery Walk from 3pm – 6pm. In the evening, choose from a bonfire on the beach, beginning at 7pm, or a headliner concert at the Coaster Theatre at 7:30pm.

Festivities wrap up on Sunday with a “C’mon It’s Summer!” 5K Fun Run/Walk.

The Sand Castle Contest is one of the premier festivals in Cannon Beach. In spite of drizzly weather last year, over 25,000 people attended. Spectators watched sculptors as they knelt in the sand surrounded by shovels and buckets, gently forming the sand with paint brushes, trowels, and fingers. First prize in the Master’s division went to a sculpture of cartoonish sharks and adorable seals lounging at a “sand bar.”

What fantastic scenes will emerge from the sand this year? Come down to Cannon Beach and find out — or sculpt the answer yourself.

Give you mother a spa getaway for Mother's Day.

Flowers fade — memories last. This Mother’s Day, treat your mom to an experience that will leave her refreshed and relaxed: a bed and breakfast getaway with a trip to the spa.

Whether she’s your own mother, the mother of your children, a mother-to-be, or your best girlfriend cum playdate coordinator, all mothers deserve a well-earned break. And what could be more relaxing, more rejuvenating, and more refreshing than being pampered by innkeepers and massage therapists?

Arch Cape Inn & Retreat offers in-room massages for two with its Couple’s Stress Reduction Package. Reconnect with your mother, wife, or best girlfriend on a weekend getaway to our luxury bed & breakfast outside Cannon Beach. Enjoy a sixty-minute classic massage in the Tuscan Spa, Tower, or Tapestry Room or at the Cannon Beach Spa, then share a bottle of of champagne, wine, or cider and a pair of roses by the fire.

If Mom would prefer the full day spa experience, head to the Cannon Beach Spa. Their menu of spa services is comprehensive, including massage, hydrotherapy, facials, foot treatments, and more. Choose a massage from the classic relaxation (a traditional Swedish massage), deep tissue, aromatherapy, shiatsu, couples, or hot stone massage, or, for mothers-to-be, the pregnancy massage. Several packages, including Volcanic Wonder and Madame Butterfly, offer a variety of treatments. Afterward, don’t forget to browse the on-site Chocolate Cafe with its mouthwatering spread of Moonstruck Chocolates truffles.

Add in the scenery of the Oregon coast, and Mom’s getaway becomes a true escape from the everyday world. Watching the eagles soar over the ocean’s waves while wandering the wide, sandy beach is a meditative experience. Let her absorb the peace of the coastal forest. Let her reconnect with the natural rhythms of the tides and the seasons.

Celebrate the mother in your life by giving her — and yourself — a weekend of wellness.

Find all of this on the Clatsop Trail, a 2 1/2 mile loop hike at at Ecola State Park. The trailhead is a scenic ten-mile drive up the coast from Arch Cape Inn and is just north of Cannon Beach, making it a perfect day-trip destination. Pack a lunch for a picnic on the beach, and plan for dinner in town.

View Hike at Ecola State Park in a larger map

The coastal forest greets you even before you leave the car. As you enter the park (and pay the worthwhile $5 daily fee) and wind your way down the narrow road to the trailhead, you pass old-growth Sitka spruce trees, giants prized by the timber company for their impressive girth and height.

The parking lot is shared by hikers, beach walkers, and surfers. The trail begins at Indian Beach, a cozy crescent of sand between the bluffs of Indian Point and a jumble of rocky tidepools. Check a tide chart and take time, before or after your hike, to explore the tidepools at low tide. Look for hermit crabs skittering across the bottoms of pools, other crabs wedged into crevices, darting minnows, brightly colored starfish, and tentacled green sea anemones.

The trail itself ducks back under the canopy of tall conifers to follow an old gravel road. It climbs up to 800 feet in just over a mile to Hiker’s Camp, a walk-in campsite with three well-used Adirondack-style shelters. A short spur trail leads to the edge of a seaside bluff overlooking the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse a mile and a half offshore.

From here, you can extend your hike by continuing north on a four-mile trail to the town of Seaside. Otherwise, the Clatsop Trail loops back toward the trailhead, trading the gravel road for a footpath. More overlooks peak through the trees, sometimes toward the Cannon Beach sea stacks.

As you return to your car and wind your way back through the park, look forward to dinner at your favorite Cannon Beach restaurant and a relaxing evening back at our inn.

Have an evening on the town with the Coaster Theatre's performance of "Butterflies are Free"

The Coaster Theatre is bringing Broadway to Cannon Beach this May with its staging of the play Butterflies are Free.

The story, loosely based on the life of attorney Harold Krents, follows a blind man as he moves out of his overbearing mother’s home and learns how to live his own independent life. When he befriends a free-spirited hippie and connects with a neighbor girl, his mother’s stifling love becomes an obstacle to his freedom — an obstacle he must acknowledge and confront.

Performances run on weekends from May 4 – 27. In addition, a special “Talkback Thursday” performance on May 17 will give theatergoers the opportunity to ask questions to the actors and learn more about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into staging a play.

The original Broadway play, written by Leonard Gershe, ran for 1,128 performances from 1969 to 1972 at the Booth Theatre. It was nominated for three Tony Awards and won one for best featured actress in a play. In 1972, it was adapted into a movie starring Edward Albert and Goldie Hawn.

The rest of the Coaster Theatre’s season promises more theatrical favorites:

• Arsenic and Old Lace: June 15 – September 8
• You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown: July 5 – September 22
• A Week of Augusts: July 18 – October 13
• A Christmas Carol: November 16 – December 29

The Coaster Theatre is an historic piece of Cannon Beach’s wealth of cultural attractions. The building was originally built as the Coaster Roller Rink in the 1920s, and was also used to show silent movies. A major remodeling was done in 1972 to transform the building into today’s theater. Since 2001, the theater has been run by a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the arts in Cannon Beach.

The theater’s downtown location provides a great opportunity for an evening on the town. Restaurants and pubs are within walking distance, and the Cannon Beach dining scene is renowned for its culinary quality. The Coaster Theatre is a mainstay of any Cannon Beach getaway.

Artists unveil their latest works in Cannon Beach during the Spring Unveiling.

Spring is a time of renewal and rebirth. In Cannon Beach, Oregon, spring is the time when new pieces of fine art make their world debuts.

The twelfth annual Spring Unveiling in Cannon Beach welcomes you to three days of celebrating the arts over the weekend of May 4 – 6, 2012. Come explore the town’s renowned art galleries, speak with the artists about their artistic ideas, and be the first to see their latest works.

Saturday will highlight the newest works of a variety of local, national, and international artists. About every half hour, an artist will “unveil” his or her newest works at one of the thirteen member galleries of the Cannon Beach Gallery Group. Painters, sculptors, photographers, jewelers, glass workers, and even a book artist will reveal and discuss their works.

The culinary arts will make an appearance at this year's Cannon Beach Spring Unveiling.

Many of these works are inspired by the dramatic landscape of Cannon Beach itself. Haystack Rock features prominently in works from past Unveilings, as do the shore birds, rugged cliffs and expansive beaches of the Oregon Coast. Even if the subject matter doesn’t deal directly with the local coastal landscape, the area’s wildness and majesty are often reflected in the artists’ works.

Throughout the weekend, artists will discuss their creative processes with the public. Demonstrations are scheduled for painting with acrylics, using pastels, turning bowls, and creating recycled art. One presentation will include an appearance by native birds from the Wildlife Center of the North Coast, and another will focus on creating paintings for display under blacklights. Several catered artist receptions are planned throughout the weekend with live music.

New this year will be participation from the culinary arts. Local chefs will partner with the galleries to choose an artwork that will inspire a new menu item, which will be available to the public throughout the weekend. New culinary creations will include entrees as well as cocktails, desserts, and appetizers.

Although Cannon Beach is well known for its arts scene in all seasons, the Spring Unveiling marks the beginning of a new year of artistic pursuits.

Help us welcome back the tufted puffins during Cannon Beach's Twelve Days of Earth Day celebrations.

“Welcome back, puffins!”

So reads a handmade sign held by a flock of school children in front of Cannon Beach’s most prominent landmark, Haystack Rock, every April.

Haystack Rock is home to a colony of 200-300 tufted puffins during the summer months, where they congregate after many months on the open ocean to mate and raise chicks.

Their arrival is a sure sign of spring in Cannon Beach and is celebrated during the annual Twelve Days of Earth Day celebration.

During the event, April 11 – 22, 2012, volunteers with the Haystack Rock Awareness Program set up puffin-viewing stations on the beach with spotting scopes. They are also available to answer questions about the distinctive birds.

Tufted puffins are striking birds during the summer breeding season: each sports a thick, bright orange bill, a bright white face atop a jet-black body, and a pair of golden tufts curling from orange-rimmed eyes down the back of the neck. In the air, they fly purposefully with constantly flapping wings.

Look for stocky birds with bright orange bills, white faces, and black bodies.

The best time of year to see the birds is in April, before the puffins begin incubating their eggs, or July, when the parents frequently leave the nest to catch fish and squid for the chicks. Low tide is the best time of day, when you can get the best view of the north face of the rock, where the birds prefer to nest. You can see them flutter around the rock with your bare eyes, but bring binoculars to see plumage details and watch the birds interact.

Puffins have short, powerful wings that are good for swimming, but they give the birds little grace in the air.

The puffins may be the stars of the Twelve Days of Earth Day celebrations, but visitors can enjoy a variety of other events, too. These include an art show, native tree planting, a street fair complete with face painting and a Sitka spruce giveaway, and the Salmon Celebration and Potluck, a fundraiser to help the City of Cannon Beach purchase Native American artist Lillian Pitt’s sculpture “Salmon Journey.” Speakers will present on a variety of environmental issues, including climate change, organic gardening, marine debris from the Japanese tsunami, conservation areas in Oregon state forests, and backyard beekeeping with native bees.

I hope we see you all for this wonderful annual event that includes everyone in our area, showcasing the best that our little community has to offer.

Link to schedule of events….check out the ‘Wine Smackdown’!

http://savorcannonbeach.com/

Fun, food and wine at the beach… a great romantic weekend getaway.

Each year we get to see and experience the pure and wild joy of watching the whales make their way along our coast.

Trained volunteers at 24 “Whale Watching Spoken Here” sites help visitors spot gray whales during the winter and spring annual migrations. The volunteers are on duty 10 a.m.-1 p.m. to help visitors see the marine animals and offer information about their migration.

Whale Watching sites…Listed from north to south, these are the 24 sites
Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, Ilwaco, Washington
Ecola State Park
Neahkahnie Mountain Historic Marker Turnout on Highway 101
Cape Meares State Scenic Viewpoint
Cape Lookout State Park – 2.5 mile hike to site at tip of Cape
Cape Kiwanda
Inn at Spanish Head Lobby on 10th floor
Boiler Bay State Scenic Viewpoint
The Whale Watching Center/Depoe Bay Sea Wall
Rocky Creek State Scenic Viewpoint
Cape Foulweather
Devil’s Punchbowl State Natural Area
Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area
Don Davis City Park
Cape Perpetua Interpretive Center
Cook’s Chasm Turnout
Sea Lion Caves Turnout – large Highway 101 turnout south of tunnel
Umpqua Lighthouse, near Umpqua Lighthouse State Park
Shore Acres State Park
Face Rock Wayside State Scenic Viewpoint
Battle Rock Wayfinding Point, Port Orford
Cape Ferrelo
Harris Beach State Park, Brookings, Oregon
9th Street Beach, Crescent City, California

There are about 400 gray whales that do not go as far north as Alaska to feed in the summer. They feed along coasts of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. We generally have whales on the central coast from July through mid November. These whales are seen very close to shore while feeding and can often be seen from many of these same locations into January.

First Course

Oysters Bernard – creamed arugula, candied chiles, gingerbread crumble

Sweet Corn Risotto – pork lardoons, Dungeness crab, fresh tarragon

Local Artisan Cheeses – apple butter, crostini

Beet Salad – baby arugula, braised pistachio, chevre aspic, fennel, roast garlic

Butternut Squash Bisque – ginger oil, apple chips

Entrée

Beef Filet – duxelle potatoes au gratin, swiss chard, mustard demi glace

Pan Roasted Salmon – roasted fingerlings, sprouts, pickled radish, zinfandel sauce

Duxelle Ricotta Raviolo– caramelized onion, truffle dust, rosemary oil

Dessert

Valentine’s Day Kisses – meringue, ganache, raspberry coulis

Rose Hip Sorbet – rose hip consomme, fresh rose petals

Duo of Chocolate Soup – dark chocolate and white chocolate soup, fresh berries

$49 per Person Prix Fixe   Gratuity and Beverages Not Included