From P to shining P

Just before we went to Cape Cod this summer, we got a paid version of the AllTrails app, and it has been a great thing. You can go on the app and look for trails nearby, filtering by how long they are and how far away. I’d done some looking and one of the hikes took off not far south of here and went along the beach. We ended up doing a section of the hike, starting at the Governor Patterson State Park parking lot (#68), walking past the Big Stump, and popping up at the Beachside State Recreation Site (#70) for a stop at their restrooms before heading back up. While we were at Beachside we thought it would be fun to check out their campsite, which is right on the beach. We discovered site 63, which is absolutely fantastic – slightly separated from the others, and angled so that we’d be looking out over the ocean from our recliners. It’s our goal to reserve it next fall. 

Beachside Campsite 63

The whole roundtrip was just over 5 miles, so a good start to the day. There aren’t as many big monoliths on the coast here – seal rock is about the only one – so beach walking isn’t quite as interesting as it is in the Arch Cape/Cannon Beach area that we’re so familiar with, and of course since we aren’t familiar with this area, we can’t do a sand report. It was another gorgeous day out. We stopped at the trailer and got cleaned up, then headed to Newport for our afternoon activities. We had lunch at the Bayfront Rogue Brewing, picked up our boarding pass, and walked around the historic bayfront area for about an hour before lining up to board the Discovery for some ocean and river sightseeing. The historic bayfront seems a little less tacky touristy than I remember it – it’s still touristy, but the shops actually had some things you might like to bring home.

A gorgeous day

Dave got to drive

Last fall when we were in Newport we’d taken the Discovery (that’s the name of the ship) and run into a wall of fog on the ocean. It was a beautiful day today so no chance of that. We ended up being on the ship with a large group of well behaved 6^th graders from Cascades Academy in Bend. We went out into the ocean and had a fun time going up and down the swells. I liked having the kids on board because they were all hooting and hollering as the boat went up and down, which meant I could too, without people staring at me. I was hoping we’d see some gray whales, but I think we used up all our whale watching luck off the Cape this summer. After too short a time we turned around and did some cruising up the estuary, stopping to pick up the crab pots which had caught quite a few crabs, including a huge Dungeness that the tour guide said was the biggest she’d ever seen – maybe 7.5-8” across.

Back on land the ice cream shop next to the tour office was just opening up, so we stopped and got ice cream cones – chocolate peanut butter for me, and mudslide for Dave. He was planning on just having some tastes of mine but he really doesn’t like that flavor so he got his own. It turned out to be a good thing, because walking around town on our way back to the car eating yummy ice cream on a warm sunny day turned out to be one of the highlights of this trip for both of us.

We got back to the trailer a little after 5 and had delicious Pasta a la Norma from home, and watched “October Skies”. A good day.