We lucked out on the weather today. The forecast was for rain and the day started out very overcast. But by the time we finished a morning walk on the beach at South Beach State Park in Newport, some blue was peeking out. And the weather got even better as the day went on.
After our walk we went to Newport's Bayfront District. Bayfront is both a tourist area with restaurants, gift and fudge shops and art stores, plus a working pier and home to Oregon's largest commercial fishing fleet. We had lunch at Mo's, a seafood/chowder house started in Newport in1946 and that now has six restaurants along the Oregon coast. One of Mo's claims to fame is that when a customer accidentally crashed her car through the side of the restaurant some years back, founder Mo (real name: Mohave Niemi) put her arm around the customer and told her the restaurant would put in a garage door so she could drive in any time she wanted. And there still is a garage door at the front of the restaurant.
After lunch we walked around Bayfront, then went to the Rogue Brewery there to watch the Oregon State Beavers play San Diego State. The Beavs were losing at half time, so we came back to the rig. Jim finished cheering his team (who won 35-30) while listening to the radio and I took a sunset walk on the beach. Nice day.
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| Cooper on the first part of the path from the South Beach State Park campground to the ocean. |
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| After the asphalt trail, a boardwalk takes you to beach grass and sand. |
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And here's the beach. Our camping spot is close enough that at night we can hear the waves crashing.
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| I can't do justice to the power and beauty of the Pacific Ocean with my camera, but here's an attempt: waves crashing into the South Jetty near our campground. |
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| The Yaquina Bay Bridge on US 101 spans the Yaquina Bay. It's very art deco looking and, in fact, one of Newport's five neighborhoods is called the Deco District. The others are Agate Beach, Nye Beach, Bayfront (where we spent the afternoon today) and South Beach (where we're camping.) |
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| Jim with his clam chowder and two beers our waitress gave him because the restaurant temporarily didn't have a chilled pint glass. I also had the chowder and we split some halibut. Very good. |
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| Two of 23 sea lions we saw at the Bayfront pier. |
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| A view from the street in Bayfront: A machine at one of the fish processing plants dumps shrimp peelings. |
Free beer is always a good thing. But no frosted glass for us. Can't have that glorious brew being contaminated by water droplets. And a glass from the freezer will lower the temp -- beer becomes tastier as it rises in temp. We look forward to getting to Rogue and the many others in the NW.
ReplyDeleteYou are purists and we can't disagree!
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