I’m not much of a lighthouse person. Despite that, we decided to stay a night in the historic keeper’s house for the Heceta Head Lighthouse. Both the lighthouse and the keeper’s house were built in about 1894 and they’re beautifully preserved. What drew us was the history … but also the seven course breakfast they serve. 🙂

I took this picture from the Sea Lion Cave. In the distance, you can see the lighthouse. The keeper’s house is down a little and to the right of the lighthouse, on an acre of flat ground that’s covered with grass.

Here’s what it looks like upclose. That porch has the most amazing views on the coast.

See what I mean? In the distance, on the shoulder of the farthest rock, you can barely see the building that’s the entrance to the Sea Lion Cave. On the rocks at ocean level, just in front of the crashing waves, there are a bunch of sea lions laying around.

Another shot of the same view.

More from the porch.

Can you imagine waking to this view every morning? It’s breathtaking.

The house is full of these stained glass windows.

I view of the lighthouse from the keeper’s house.

Okay, the place is seriously beautiful and we enjoyed our wine on the porch with a beautiful sunset. However, we enjoyed waking up even more.

Haceta Head (pronounced like Ha-SEE-ta) is known for its seven course breakfasts. They’re also proud of the fact they never serve the same dish twice in any given week. They have so many breakfast recipes, they’ve published a cook book–and I can promise you that based on what we sampled, it would be a good investment. 🙂

Breakfast started with fruit and a white chocolate dipping sauce. It was excellent. They also served a sweet bread made with raspberries that was to-die-for.  I was so overwhelmed with the yumminess that I forgot to take pictures.  Rest assured, I got snaps of the rest!

The third course was a salad made with avocado, crab, and fennel, with a citrus-mango dressing. Yes, it was as good as it looks.

This was my favorite course, by far. It’s a mango/mint frappe.  I’m going to be dreaming about this one for a very long time. In fact, it was so good that I ordered my own copy of the cookbook I mentioned earlier. This recipe isn’t in it, but the chef assured me all I had to do was substitute mango for the other fruits in those recipes and it would work. 

This is Eggs Benedict with arugula pesto and hollandaise sauce. The flower is from the arugula plant (or so they tell me). I thought the flowers were incredibly beautiful. I almost hated to move them aside so I could eat. Too pretty to disturb.

And that brings us to this berry cobble made with port. They also passed heavy cream to pour on top. It was incredible. I can easily envision some Christmas morning in the future when I’ll make the frappe and this cobbler, along with some sticky buns, and it will be the best breakfast I’ve ever made.

You may be thinking, “but that’s only six courses!” You’d be right. They also passed cheese with slices of nectarine at the end. The cheese was weird. It looked and felt just like brie, but it tasted like blue cheese. Took me by surprise.

After we’d stuffed ourselves, it was time to hit the road. Today was mostly a driving day, but we did stop here and there for short visits.

We’ve seen many of these bridges all over Oregon. They’re very 1920s art deco. This one is in Lincoln City, Oregon.

I took this picture at the Yaquina Head Lighthouse. The birds on these rocks were practically on top of each other. They’re Common Murres and they look like little penguins. However, unlike penguins, these birds fly. They don’t build nests, but lay their eggs directly on the rocks.

Here’s a bit more of the picture above.

This was on the other side of the lighthouse

A slightly different perspective of the same rocks.

We ended up in Portland, Oregon, for the night and we plan to drive along the Columbia River tomorrow. Stay tuned!