Terrible Tilly

I am a fool for lighthouses. Naturally, I enjoy living in the Pacific Northwest, where there are so many of them. The one that intrigues me the most is Terrible Tilly, aka the Tillamook Head Lighthouse.

It has a gruesome and dramatic history (Tilly's history), and even though it's no longer an active lighthouse it still stands sentinel off Cannon Beach. I'm a little weirded out that it's now a columbarium (lovely name for "dump your ashes here"), as I can't help but wonder who the peculiar individual was who came up with that plan. Just in case you want to park your ashes there, check it out here:

Eternity at Sea

Anyway, I digress. I really wanted to see Terrible Tilly from as close an angle as possible, which would involve hiking. I should preface that statement by saying I do not have an athletic or outdoorsy-type bone in my body.

I was always incredibly relieved that I was the last to be chosen for any team at school, hoping I could spend my time on the bench reading, and my idea of camping out is a hotel that doesn't have a fridge in the room.

Nonetheless, I suddenly got this urge to climb up this wretchedly narrow forest path with sheer drop-offs to one side to get a good look at old Tilly. Wearing my plastic Payless sandals, no less.

The higher I climbed, and the deeper into the forest I went, the more determined I became. Even though I was hearing lilting running stream sounds, not ocean sounds, which made me doubt the sanity of my climb, I kept trudging.

Finally, I rounded a bend in the forest, and could hear booming ocean noises. Aha! Then there was a sign warning of cliffs, and falling rocks, and all of the things that I would not be within a mile (or ten) of in my normal state of mind. In my lunacy, all I could think of was that I must be close to the view I was seeking.

Then I rounded a corner at the top near some gawd-awful cliff-edge (fortunately, the view down was obscured by trees at that point), and I could see straight out. There were clouds, and sunlight, and sea, and yes, at last, the amazing and majestic Terrible Tilly.

That view was worth every gasp and blister it took to get up that hill.