More New Traditions

Normally at the end of a vacation we get started packing and moving out right away. But checkout here isn’t until 11, and it’s another gorgeous day – clear, warm, and not very windy. So instead of our usual plan we got up and got moving right away… down the street to Pig’n for breakfast. We got there about 7:30 and were seated right away, and the food came before my tea had cooled enough to drink! We have our standard Pig’n order, although we discovered that it’s too much food for breakfast – a bacon and half the hash browns got left behind. It reminded us of the time Ben and Joan came to visit and Ben ordered too much food…

We were out of Pig’n by 8:30 and headed down to Haystack rock which was looking very good. The lowest tides have been in the evening, but the morning tides are low enough for most walks. We walked through town to just south of midtown, being deeply impressed by the line at Sleepy Monk coffee. What’s amazing is that Bald Eagle coffee just a block away was open and had no line at all. I made Dave cut through someone’s yard to get to the beach access we used when we were at Elliott Way cottage. I don’t know why but I like to revisit the beach access paths. We walked back up the beach and crossed Ecola Creek where it fans out on the sand – without getting our feet wet! The combination of high sand, low tide, and a dry summer all came together.

After a lovely morning of being out we got packed up and then settled back into relaxing  - me sitting at the table in our room with the screen door open, reading and typing and watching the waves, and Dave down in his happy place on the lawn. We checked out at 10:59, then walked through town a bit before having a classic lunch at Bill’s and then heading home. We want to remember that room 54 is the best room, with room 56, our current room, a close second. After a couple of absolutely perfect sunny days it is hard to remember that it’s not always like this here. What a great time we had!

A Glorious Day

I packed for this trip Tuesday night, and did a pretty good job of it too, except for the part where the pants I grabbed were actually shorts, which often aren’t that useful on the Oregon Coast. After writing and posting the blog, I headed to town to see if I could find some pants. And I did! Ter Hars actually had a pair of jeans that fit perfectly, and while I was there I found a great looking outer shirt. Lots of winning! Once I got back to the room it was already time to head to Warren House for lunch. They open at noon, even though their facebook page and signs at the restaurant all say they open at 1 because of staffing shortages – which are an epidemic of their own. Warren House is running a limited menu too. It doesn’t include my favorite thing, the smoker’s salad, but Dave and I shared some steamed clams and a reuben and I must say it was a very satisfying lunch.

After lunch I walked on the beach to the whale, and then down through town (popping in to the yarn
store to say hi to my yarn) to Bruce’s, where I got some salted licorice and some salt water taffy. It was so sunny and warm in town I felt hot in my jeans and turtleneck. I changed into shorts (aha! They did come in handy after all!) and a t-shirt and a light denim shirt and then Dave and I headed down to the beach to do some exploring. Dave wished he’d brought his plastic Birkenstock knock-offs, which he bought as a make-do thing at Freddy’s for going to the Cape and which have turned out to be indispensable. But I digress. We left our shoes at the beginning of the sand and went north. It was pretty much high tide, and as we started across Ecola Creek a wave was rolling in and making the water level higher. It turned out not to be a big deal as its been such a dry summer, and the creek was only about knee height. The water was also not too cold, although there was stiff wind blowing that made me wish I’d put on a warmer overshirt. We ended up walking along the beach all the way up to the rocks at the north end. Up at that end are also a bunch of huge, huge houses. What do they do with all that space? There was a trail that looked like it would cross over the ridge and get you onto the other side, but it was closed for erosion control. Too bad. 

On the way back there was a huge flock of seagulls which I thought it would be fun to try to walk through – I had envisioned waves of seagulls rising in front of my and squawking angrily, but instead what happened is that gulls within about a 5 foot radius around me would scatter and land out of my path, muttering gull curses under their breath. I left a path between them and felt just like Moses.

One really nice feature of Schooner’s Cove(or, as Dave calls it, “The Resort”)  is that they have a lawn between the sea wall and the hotel, with lots of chairs, picnic tables, and even a few barbecue grills scattered around – and a hose for washing off your feet. We washed off our feet and sat down in two of the Adirondack chairs to let our feet dry, and ended up sitting there for a long time. You can put your feet up on the seawall like an ottoman, and unlike every deck or balcony or porch we’ve ever sat on there is no railing right at eye height, so we had a wonderful view of the waves. Also, the 2^nd street entrance to the beach is just around the corner, so there was a constant stream of people to watch. 

Dave went up and got us some fizzy waters and we had a delightful time. Eventually he headed up and I went across the creek and back to see how high it was now that the tide had gone out enough not to be raising the level, and it was exactly the right height to make you think you could cross it without water going over the tops of your boots, except if you tried doing it the water would definitely go over the tops and you’d have to walk back to wherever with squishy wet socks. Fortunately I was barefoot, so it was just fun.

Then I joined Dave upstairs for some relaxing until it was time to get cleaned up for dinner. The drive up to Astoria was uneventful until the very end. Before we got to the bridge that crosses from Warrenton to Astoria there was a sign saying “crash ahead megler bridge closed”, which made me get on google maps right away because I couldn’t remember which bridge was called what. It turns out that’s the big bridge across the Columbia to Washington, and people were stuck on top of it which would be one of my worst nightmares come true. We were hoping most of the people up there were thinking, “oh, cool, I’ve always wanted to be able to take my time and see the sights from up here” and not just repeating the names of various deities and practicing their deep breathing over and over. It took about an hour for things to start moving again and another half hour for traffic towards Washington to clear out. We were only minimally impacted – just before we could make a left turn down onto the dock area we got stopped in the line of traffic. Fortunately there was a parking lot to cut through so we got to dinner in time.

Bridgewater Bistro has been a favorite for a while – we ate on their back deck last year with Josh and Jen. They have put up some clear wind shelters and we had a very good dinner from their reduced menu – the crab cheesecake never fails to disappoint, and I very much enjoyed my fish cakes. They reminded me a lot of codfish cakes from my childhood, which I remember as being lots of filler and not a lot of fish. They also have very nice small desserts, so you can go home full but not stuffed.

It was a glorious clear night and low tide when we got back, so we booted up and went for a walk down the beach, coming up by Surfsand and walking back along the beachfront road. It’s always fun to do that since most people don’t shut the curtains on their big picture windows so you can check out all the houses. We remembered a path that brings you out right by the back yard of Schooner’s Cove and came up for tea and relaxing. And that was our day.

New Traditions?

 
What to do after they sell the rental you’ve been going to forever? Well, one idea is to go to a hotel nearby – in this case, the Schooner’s Cove Inn, which has the advantage of being pretty much in the middle of “uptown” Cannon Beach. Dave came out on Tuesday, but we had our Wellness/Safety Fair & Employee Appreciation gathering at work early Wednesday afternoon, so I stayed at work to pick up my 5 year pin in person. I also won a UV sanitizer for my phone in a raffle, so now I can sanitize my phone (is that a thing, even?)

I had an easy drive out  – the least traffic I’ve ever seen, as it was a cool drizzly day. I had to pass exactly two cars the whole trip, and once I’d gotten settled in we had dinner at Pelican. For the first time ever I was disappointed in the Pelican menu. They had neither the walnut tacos (not surprising as they were a rotating special but MAN were they good) nor the sweet potato quinoa pattie over a salad, which was an unpleasant surprise as I thought that was a menu staple. But we had a flatbread and roasted cauliflower and it was good. I had a Happoshu beer (a Japanese-style beer containing less than 67% malt content, in case you were wondering) which was quite nice. We walked to and from the restaurant, and on our way back Dave took the short route to the hotel while I walked all the way up to Bill’s through town to see what was what and also hoping for a small sweet snack. It was about 7, and pretty much the entire town was completely shut down. It made me want to open a dessert place that is only open in the evenings and has small cookies. Once I got back to the hotel we had a nice evening of reading, made perfect by finding a packet of two Milano cookies in the snack bag I got at the party.

The second best thing about Schooner’s Cove (ok, it’s the 3^rd, because the first thing is that it has floor to ceiling windows that look out over the beach and Ecola creek) is that the bedroom closes off from the sitting area and is dark in the morning, so I slept in until after 7. Then we got moving pretty quickly, because the tide was pretty much out according to my tide tables. We hopped in the car and headed down to Hug Point, because it had to be done. We were startled as we made the turn onto 101 from midtown to find a Huge Herd of Helk pretty much right on the side of the road. Close enough to see their fine beards, in fact. But I digress.

Here is the sand report: The Sand is High. It comes up into the cave to the south and the rock fins are all covered, and you can walk on sand in the narrow place behind the triangular rock between “our” beach and the Hug Point beach, and the sand comes right up to the dog-photo-rocks by the Carriage Road. The waterfall was probably the lightest water trickle we’ve ever seen – the sand came all the way up to the rocks. We walked down to the rocks to the south and there were tons of starfish, pretty much back to pre-starfish disease numbers.

And, to answer the biggest question of all, the house is still there, looking unchanged. When the owners sold the house I figured the folks who bought it would continue to use it, but Dave suspected they would tear it down and build a mansion. We still don’t know for sure that they won’t, but for right now it’s still there. However, the lowest segment of the path to the beach – the steep stairs – had either washed away or been removed and was now just a sandy path. We headed back towards the car and on the stairs to the parking lot we met a young man who was here for his first time from New York, and we directed him over toward the carriage road. It made me think what it would be like to be here for the first time and see these rocks and the trees growing right down to the edge of the beach and the little creeks running out to the ocean and the expanses of hard empty sand. What an amazing place this is!

We got back in the car and were heading back to the hotel when Dave noticed a beach access sign at the
southernmost end of Cannon Beach (the one on the west side of the road). We’d been talking about how the Rock Wahii was one of our favorite places but that it was a long walk from both Arcadia Beach and Tolovana. Then this beach access sign made us think and wonder. So we got off at the Tolovana exit and headed south, continuing south on the dead end road past the turnoff to 101, and eventually found a place to park near a beach access point and went down and were as close to the Rock Wahii as you would want to be – maybe 200 yards away? So we walked over and climbed over to the hole (it seemed rockier in front to me than usual, but Dave didn’t think so) and looked through and walked back to the car, all in about 15 minutes. Both of us were very pleased to have been to the Rock, and also vaguely unsatisfied, as if we’d somehow cheated. It just doesn’t seem right to have the experience of seeing the hole in the rock without working for it.

It was chilly when we set out (47 degrees!) thanks to a clear night. There was some light fog over the ocean while we had our walks, but that all cleared out and it’s now a beautiful, warm, sunny day and we have a whole day of relaxing in front of us. I’d better get started.

Pivot Day 5 - A Little Sunshine on our shoulders

I slept in a little, so by the time I woke up Dave had a plan in mind. By the time we finished our breakfast and morning tea and tidying the trailer it was just about low tide, so we headed up towards Yaquina Head. On the way there I suggested we stop at Seal Rock State Recreation Site, which turns out to be a very cool place for a whole lot of reasons. First, it has two huge columnar basalt monoliths at one end, one of which is falling over so Dave had to help hold it up (ok not really). In between then there’s a narrow passage you can scramble into. Heading south from there are many fins and outcroppingsin two rows – a taller row further out, and flatter rocks creating a fantastic tide pool area and lots of interesting rock shapes. There is also a lot of sandstone everywhere, and places where there are layers of sandstone interspersed with layers of broken up basalt. If you want to know everything about it, check this out: https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/downloads/4m90f0597?locale=en. We ended up spending a long time walking around the tide pools and climbing around the edges, but eventually we were ready to move on. 

We continued on up to Yaquina Head and walked out to the lighthouse and up Salal hill, a gentle uphill hike through thick salal bushes with fantastic views. A sign at the top of Salal Hill talked about the quarrying that had taken place at Yaquina Head to produce basalt for making highway 101. There were upper and lower quarries and once you know about them it changes how the whole place looks – the visitor center is in the upper quarry.

On the way there we also noticed a sign we’d never seen before – apparently Hwy 20 which takes off from Newport ends up in Kenmore Square 3,365 miles away. Sounds like a road trip!

Lunch was at Wolf Tree brewery, where the beer and food were both good, although my 2 sliders needed some chips or fries to make them a meal. Wolf Tree is new, just south of the Newport bridge in a little community called Wilder, and the sign by the restaurant also lists the Newport Symphony as a tenant. It’s a good place to keep in mind since it has ample parking and is outside the regular tourist areas. The road to it is across 101 from the South Beach Fish Market, which is always crowded.

After lunch it was recliner time. We both did some good napping. Once we were up Dave found a nice hike for us along Beaver Creek, in the Beaver Creek State Natural area, part of Brian Booth State Park. It’s a very different hike than we’ve been doing, through a wide marshy area and then up into the trees, with cows bellowing like a foghorn off in the distance. We ran into a man who was taking off in his kayak from the kayak launch, which looked fun. After the hike we stopped at the seal rock overlook and walked out to the overlook. On the way back we passed a man who said, “It’s impossible to get anywhere on schedule when this country is so stupidly beautiful”, and that about sums it up. There are so many little parks with trails in this area you could just spend all your time finding new places to see.

Trailer dinner again tonight – black bean salad that we brought for lunches at Lava Beds. It was mostly cloudy all day today with little bits of sun peeking through, but as we ate dinner the sky cleared out until it was pretty much wall to wall blue skies. We decided that we’d drive back up to Seal Rock and watch the sunset in the hope of seeing a green flash. Seal Rock has several turnouts and by sunset they were almost all full of sunset seekers. We walked over to the south end of the cove and Dave found a nice flat grassy spot that made a perfect place to sit and watch. While we didn’t see a green flash it was a very pretty sunset, complete with fingernail moon to the south. Dave pointed out that we’re close enough to the equinox that the sun is setting almost due west, and showed it with his compass app. Seal Rock may be one of my favorite places.

We came home and did some more Nez du Vin, including “bilberry” which is what they call blueberry for some reason. It was fun smelling blackberry as they are growing like crazy everywhere and are ripe and delicious. Tomorrow morning we pack up and head home. We are glad we got to spend an extended time here and already have a list of things we want to do next time!

Pivot Day 4 - In which our recliners call to us from afar

 

One thing we’ve noticed when we go on cruises is that for the first few days we rush from event to event – a cooking demo here, a navigation talk there, a wine tasting back where the cooking demo was, and of course lots of exercise classes for me. This vacation has felt like that, so this morning we decided we’d have some down time. It was a cold, foggy day pretty much all day, which made a relaxed morning even more appealing. I spent a frustrating but eventually fruitful time picking up the stitches for one sleeve on the cotton sweater I’m making, and we finally took the “nature trail” from the campground entrance down to the bay. There is a hotel down there – the Alsea resort – but mostly what is down there on a spit of land jutting out into the bay is the Bayshore Beach Club, a subdivision/community with a very nice clubhouse. We know about this because we walked past the club house on our way to the ocean side, where we saw a fairly large group of ladies doing water aerobics in their heated outdoor pool. It reminded us of the gated communities they have in Florida, only without the gates. Also all of the houses are houses, and weren’t built with any kind of conformity in mind at all. We did not see any houses that made us want to move here, even if there is a nice pool with water aerobics.

For lunch we headed up to Newport to eat at the Nye Beach Taphouse, where Dave had a very nice experience last time he was in Newport. Unfortunately this time wasn’t quite as nice, and we probably don’t need to go back there. Nothing was particularly wrong with it, but not much was particularly right with it. I’d give it a meh+, with the extra points for the covered patio with heaters. On the way home we stopped at Freddie’s for some groceries and at Pirate’s Plunder to get a pirate flag for Dave, but they were completely out of the classic ones. How can that be? It will have to be Amazon to the rescue.

Yesterday when we went on the hobbit trail we’d both noticed that in the other direction you could walk to Heceta Head lighthouse, and thought it might be fun. It’s a very pretty hike on the west side of 101, distinguished by the extraordinary number of ferns growing on the trees, and the larger number of the evergreen trees (species unknown) which have a number of curving branches starting low to the ground. Another distinguishing feature is that it starts out walking gently uphill, and then more uphill, and more uphill, even resorting to several short flights of the stairs that the local trail builders seem to delight in. It probably gains 400’ or so in altitude, and then dives down the other side in a series of fairly steep switchbacks and a longish set of stairs. Then suddenly you come out and there is the red turban top of the lighthouse – an unexpected viewpoint that makes the whole hike worthwhile. We missed the lighthouse being open by just a few minutes, which was very disappointing since, as Dave pointed out, what’s better after a steep hike than some stairs to the top of a lighthouse? We were pleased by the presence of port-a-potties since it meant that we didn’t have to walk down to the parking area, but it did mean that we didn’t walk past the lightkeeper’s house, which is now a B&B – how cool would that be to stay at?

Especially since if you stayed there you wouldn’t have to walk back up the steep side of the trail, which almost defeated me. I need to stop more often for rests! It was very foggy and that made it very humid, and for some reason neither Dave nor I thought to take off an outer layer of clothing until we were most of the way up. Once we did we felt better, and as we came over the crest of the ridge we both could hear our recliners calling out to us. We had a nice walk back to the car and got home to them as soon as we could.

After last night’s delicious dinner, both of us felt like we had done enough dinners out, and since we were supposed to be camping in Lava Beds (which, sadly, is now involved in the Antelope fire) we had brought some dinners to make. Dave had shredded some carrots and made dressing at home, which he augmented with cabbage and red onion (cut using his mad knife skills) for a fresh coleslaw to accompany leftover BBQ chicken and baked beans, one of our favorite meals and a nice change from too much food and dessert.

After dinner before our relaxing time we embarked on a new voyage – working our way through the Le Nez du Vin wine aroma training kit. We sniffed our way through citrus, tropical, apple and pear. The big excitement for both of us was smelling lychee, which shows up in so many wine descriptions but which neither of us remember ever smelling in person.

The forecast for tomorrow keeps changing – keeping our fingers crossed for more sun less fog.

Pivot Day 3 - Arr, Mateys, There Do Be Fog Here

Low tide was at about 8 this morning, so we were up and out and on our way back to Cape Perpetua pretty early. The Spouting Horn is the coolest thing there, but Thor’s Well is pretty cool too, and I wanted to see it at low tide. So we went to see it and it’s a big hole in the lava with and arch on one side opening out to the ocean - neat. If you were planning a single trip to CP you’d definitely want to come at high tide, but if it’s on your way somewhere else it’s worth stopping in at different tide levels to see how things look.

From CP we continued driving south to our hiking destination, going in and out of the fog and sunshine. The coast south of Newport is a great place if you want to do a lot of stopping – it seems like every mile or two there’s a public beach, wayside, picnic area, scenic viewpoint, campground – lots of places to stop and enjoy yourself. We were headed to the Hobbit Trailhead, a hike Jen and I did when we stayed in Florence that I thought Dave would like. 

You start on 101 and take a lovely twisty trail with twisty trees down to the beach (where there is an inexplicable collection of crab shells), then walk along the beach for a mile or so, cross to the east side of 101 and walk back to the start through and older forest. It was foggy on the beach, so there wasn’t much view. We did see quite a few “tin can” jellyfish corpses (I don’t know their real name). There was also some of the hummocky sand there too, which I don’t remember from when Jen and I were there. We crossed over 101 and hiked back up to the car – it’s a long, gentle mostly uphill – in the beautiful sunshine. It was fog/sun/fog/sun all day long and even into nightfall. We’d thought we might stop at the Cape Perpetua overlook, which is 800 feet above the highway on NFD 55, but CP was completely fogged in and somehow driving up a windy road in the fog to look down at the fog just didn’t sound that appealing. Two things we want to remember: 1. the way we did the loop today – going N on the beach and S in the forest – is the way to do it, otherwise you have to come up a long stairway coming off the beach and b. Heceta Head Lighthouse is 1.5 miles S from the Hobbit Trailhead and would probably be a very nice hike.

We stopped back at the trailer for a few minutes and then it was off to Newport for lunch at Newport Brewing, where the beer and Dave’s nachos were fine and my elote bowl with carne asada was delicious & also reminiscent of a Corner Store burrito bowl. We had about a half hour before we needed to check in for our next activity, so we drove up to the Yaquina Head Outstanding area where Dave went for a short walk and I took a short nap in the car. While Dave was hiking he checked his facebook and made a sad discovery – Lava Beds National Monument is being threatened by the Antelope fire and the park has been closed. So there went the second half of plan C. We decided to think about our options and not do an immediate pivot.

Then it was time to check in for our 2 hour tour with Marine Discovery Cruises. You have to check in an hour in advance because parking near there can be crazy and they want to make sure nobody misses the boat. So we checked in, and also decided we’d like to stay in Newport for another couple of days (Heceta Head lighthouse, anyone?). Dave called the KOA and while our spot was reserved starting tomorrow, there was another spot open that we could move into. This was such good news that we enjoyed shopping on the historic bayfront, scoring a Mexican style jacket for Dave and a lightweight jacket for me at the Discovery Cruise store. We barely finished all our shopping and it was time to get on the boat! I left my waffle shirt in the car, which was a mistake.

We all lined up by the railing waiting to board the boat, and had our safety drill including learning to point at someone who has fallen overboard and yell “MAN OVERBOARD”, which we practiced doing and were all quite good at. Cap’n Nick, a Newport native, drove the boat and Emma, a marine studies student at OSU, was our naturalist and also the person we all pointed at during the man overboard drill. Nick and Emma both had the same jacket I just bought but nobody seemed to think I was part of the crew.

We cruised around the harbor a little, giving way to the Northern Ram and learning to identify shrimpers and trawlers (we’d learn trollers later). We also dropped two crab pots baited with fishheads. Then we headed out under the famous Newport Bridge and out to the open sea. Which is very different in a small boat than in a cruise ship. I think it would have been a lot of fun – the sea was very calm and there was no wind – but there was a “fresh” fog (what does that mean?) and you pretty much couldn’t see where you were going – or whether that giant shape was a ship or your imagination (the former). Cap’n Nick turned us around and we went back under the bridge and cruised around the harbor and up the river, which is brackish and has jellyfish and crabs and the occasional bull shark but looks like a river. We saw California Sea Lions and learned that they’re all male – apparently the females stay in California while these males spend most of their time partying in Newport, making the barking noise which is so loud and takes so much air to make that eventually it changes the shape of their heads. We also saw some harbor seals and steller sea lions and cormorants and common murres, and we went back and pulled up the crab pots and we had caught three crabs, all of which were female so couldn’t be kept, and all of which were too small to keep even if they’d been males. Dave got to hold one. And we saw some oyster farms, where they get oysters (which we had for dinner again tonight) and also a gigantic mound of oyster shells which Emma told us the attach baby oysters to and then they only have to grow one shell. Which sounds a little suspect to me. While we were cruising along Dave got a call from the KOA that the people who were going to come take our spot had cancelled to we can stay without having to move – this is the first time in the history of this vacation that a change of plans has gone in our favor!

One thing about the tour is that you really see Newport as the active fishing town it is; about half the historic bayfront is Pacific Seafood buildings where they process fish and they have one building dedicated to making ice – they can make 500 lbs in a minute, or something like that. It’s just kind of weird and amazing that the front of Newport is all touristy and then the back side is people doing real non-tourist work.

All good sea tours come to an end (at least the 2 hour ones do) and eventually we came back to the dock. I had gotten pretty chilled and was glad to get back in the car with the seat heat turned on. We stopped at the trailer for showers and then off to Waldport and Ona’s again, where the food is excellent and we eat too much. A standout tonight were the steamed clams – they were just unusually delicious. The restaurant looks out on the Yaquina river and it’s always fun to watch the sun set and the landscape disappear. We were waiting to see stars, but as it got darker more fog blew in, so we didn’t see many. After dinner guess what, back to the trailer for recliner time!

Pivot Day 2 - Mike Mulligan and the Trail of Doom

After a good night’s sleep we were ready for our usual camping breakfast of Cacklin’ Oat Bran but NOPE, there is a national COB shortage (there really is, do the research!) and so we had granolas instead. I boiled water for our tea in a large saucepan and we did some looking for hiking trails. I found one called the Mike Miller Educational trail, a mile long loop trail with a brochure explaining Forest Features. It sounded good so we headed out. I even thought to download the brochure before we left in case of lack of signal. After a short detour because of bad signage (go straight, not left, no matter what the sign says) we found the entrance and parked. We looked for brochures in the brochure box but there weren’t any – which was ok because I had one on my phone. Meanwhile Dave kept calling it the Mike Mulligan trail, which was just wrong – it has nothing to do with that. I think he’s been spending too much time with Ben. We happily headed into the woods – it was a beautiful day – and reached signpost number 1, which told us about stabilized sand dunes and wild rhododendron. We continued on, up and down, around and through, stopping at the sign posts and becoming increasingly convinced the writing in the brochure had little or nothing to do with many of the actual places where the signposts were. We didn’t let it bother us (even though we never found the path to signpost 6, which the map showed as a little jaunt off the main trail). It’s classic partially logged forest, although the rhodies were unusual. There are several wooden bridges and when we crossed the second one Dave thought to wonder if there were geocaches on the trail, and not only were there geocaches there was one right there on the bridge, and as if that weren’t enough it was the Bridge of Doom 2 cache – in case you don’t know, “Doom” is the kids’ nickname for Dave. So there we were at his very own cache, and later on we came to the Tunnel of Doom cache. Sadly, we’d missed the Bridge of Doom 1 cache, but it’s always good to save something for the next time. The trail wound around down and over a pond, and then met up with the Emery trail, which we’d seen earlier. We completed the educational information at signpost 14 and were finishing up the walk when without warning we came upon signpost 15. There is no signpost 15 in the brochure… we can never be truly finished…

Our plan was to have an early lunch in Newport, but it wasn’t time yet so we decided to head up to the lighthouse. We got over the bridge at Newport and saw a sign for the lighthouse so we went that way, except it was the wrong lighthouse – we meant to go to the Yaquina Head lighthouse, which is in an Outstanding Natural Area, but instead we ended up at the Yaquina Bay lighthouse in the Yaquina Bay State Recreation Area, which only operated from 1871-1874 and, while neat looking, isn’t open to the public. However there were some picnic areas and a restroom, and then some trails down to the beach, which we happily took. When the boys were on the swim team the Newport meet was always the end of the summer season, and there was always a bonfire on Agate Beach to celebrate on Saturday night. Agate Beach had the most interesting sand waves, and it was always fun climbing around on them. The beach at Yaquina Bay (which is the bay where our oysters at Ona’s came from) had the same waves, and we enjoyed walking through them to get to the hard flat sand by the ocean. We walked out onto the jetty at the south end of the beach and listened to the foghorn and watched the pelicans. Then we headed back, looking for that perfect point to minimize walking over the sand waves. We each took a slightly different path – Dave’s being more direct, mine being flatter/harder sand, but ending up heading in the wrong direction – and then walked on the path up a dune and then down a dune through some meadow and then back UP a lot of stairs to right where our car was parked. And then it was time for lunch.

Lunch was at the Rogue brewery bayfront restaurant in the historic bayfront district, where we got a parking space right across from the restaurant and where they immediately brought us a beer taster once we’d sat down at our table on the sunny, sheltered from the wind patio. We had an absolutely lovely lunch including very much enjoying the Son of Mookie IPA, good for Red Sox and Dodger fans alike.  After lunch we stopped briefly at the trailer and then headed south towards Cape Perpetua, a scenic area in the Siuslaw National Forest. Jen and I had come here when we did our vacation in Florence, but we’d missed high tide, which is when the spouting horn is at its most amazing. So we went at high tide (Dave had been there at high tide before) and the spouting horn is amazing! We also walked out to Thor’s Well, which it turns out is more amazing at a lower tide. On the way down as we drove through Yachats I kept an eye out for the Drift Inn, which is where I was pretty sure Jen and I had lunch when we went to Cape Perpetua, and sure enough there it was – right across the street from Ona’s. One mystery solved – still don’t know about signpost 15. Then it was time to head back to the trailer for some serious recliner time. Dave took a nap and I wrote. Once Dave got up from his nap he connected to the campground cable TV, which is something we’ve never done. There are only 12 channels and none of them are ones we want to watch, but it is fun to have done it.

So we’re staying at the KOA campground, and the longer we stay here the more we like it. It’s very quiet at night, and extraordinarily well taken care of – for example, they rake the gravel in the tent campsites in between occupants. They also have a small store with pretty much everything you forgot to bring or didn’t even know you should bring, like a cowboy coffee pot and a mug with a VW van on it. Once I found out I needed those things I took care of it.

Back to Newport for dinner at Nana’s Irish pub. We got there at 5:30 hoping to avoid the rush, but it turns out the rush was at 5 and everyone was sitting at tables drinking their Irish beers (except for the couple with their Coors Light – hello?) and waiting for their food, which takes 20 minutes from when you order it. We were able to get the last table on the patio after a short wait. Dave had sausages in puff pastry which were delicious, and I had the steak and guinness pie which is covered with puff pastry and baked in a ceramic dish and which is absolutely delicious except even 20 minutes after it arrives it’s STILL too hot to eat even if you immediately eat all the puff pastry off the top to let it begin to cool.  I had a hot toddy for dessert which I’d give a meh+, probably don’t need to get it again. Dave ordered a crisp which eventually they realized they were out of, which was probably just as well, since it meant as soon as I finished my toddy we could get back to the trailer and boil water for tea in our new cowboy coffee pot. Which we did, and then settled in for more recliner time. 

Masters Of The Pivot - Plan D

Plan A was our usual week at the 7C’s in Arch Cape… until we got an e-mail telling us the house had been sold and the new owners weren’t honoring the reservation. No worries, how about plan B, a cruise up and down the California coast? All booked and ready but nope, got an e-mail cancelling that too. Plan C, a trip to La Pine state park and Bend, followed by some days Lava Beds? We woke up hoping to leave Monday morning, but smoke from California fires made Bend’s air quality the worst in the nation.  All the state parks up and down the coast were fully booked – time for something out of the ordinary. So here we are in the Newport/Waldport KOA (a president’s award winner, by the way) overlooking Alsea Bay.

Normally you’d take Hwy 18, but the google lady heard about a crash and took us the back way, on 99W and then who-knows-where until we hit Hwy 20 somewhere west of Newport. Twisty, bumpy roads with no shoulders made the drive less relaxing than it could have been, although we did drive by Airlie winery, which was one of the early wineries we visited and has fond memories. And the drive really was beautiful if you were lucky enough to be the passenger. We arrived and got checked in and set up (which did not go as smoothly as it sometimes does, but we got it done) and then headed out for a walk over the Alsea bridge and around Waldport, which is pretty much a wide spot on 101. It was low tide and the bay was mostly sandbar, which was pretty interesting to see. The temperature was lovely although the breeze was fierce (thank goodness for our purchased-in-Wellfleet hats with the chin straps!) which made the trip back over the bridge an adventure.

We had a little downtime in the recliners and then off to Ona’s for dinner. Dave found Ona’s in Yachats (pronounced Ya-hots), which is usually my job, but he did such a good job of choosing that I think we’ll be sharing the responsibilities from here on. They had a nice patio, tables a little closer than we would have liked. We had very tasty fresh oysters (possibly as good as Mac’s!) and mushroom pate and delicious grilled seafood – I would definitely go back. Also delicious desserts, and a very interesting wine list of mostly mid-quality local wines. I had the berry crisp which was excellent, but can’t help wishing I’d had the sticky toffee pudding instead (or as well). Much of the time we were there I was trying to figure out where Jen and I ate lunch when we went to Cape Perpetua; I was pretty sure it was in Yachats but couldn’t remember the name. Ona’s is at the south end of Yachats, so there’s no way we could have not driven past it – it was very confusing, and I spent some time this morning trying to figure it out.

After dinner it was more recliner time - we’re opening bets on how long it will take us to get recliners for the house, by the way – and then time to take down the murphy bed and do some sleeping. The trailer has nice dark shades and it’s nice and cool an quiet here, which makes for good sleeping.