Two Hearts Become Highway One: Day 10: To Newport

We left Brookings pretty early this morning because we had a long 5 hour drive to Newport. One of our favorite things about Oregon so far is that there is a Dutch Bros. on every corner in every city. It's making the long drives much more enjoyable. We have also learned that Oregon is a very, very laid back place where fishing and lumber rule the world. Jason has been somewhat annoyed with the drivers here: they don't like to go one mile over (or under) the speed limit. It makes for really really long drives.

We had a lot of different places to stop today. Some of them were for beautiful scenery and some of them were just places we wanted to say we had been. All of them were memorable and totally worth the stop.

The first place we stopped was in the Samuel H. Boardman Scenic Corridor. We had heard this was a beautiful little hike through the woods and it certainly was. It felt a little bit like Jurassic Park because the overgrowth was so thick.

The drive today was simply breathtaking. In addition to the gorgeous forestry, we also got to cross some of the coolest bridges- most of which were part of the WPA project in the T. Roosevelt era.

Our next stop was at a nifty little tourist spot called The Prehistoric Park which was so cheesy it was fun. This is literally a little place in the woods where a family has erected these huge "life-size" dinosaur statues. We didn't want to pay the $10 to go into the park, but the pictures outside were still pretty priceless. I especially like the one of Jason in his "T-Rex" pose.

After we passed through the Prehistoric Park, we made a quick stop at Cape Blanco, known mostly because it is considered the western most point of the contiguous U.S. Jason took a little trip out to the rock (my fear of heights stopped me short), and for a brief moment, Jason was the most western located human in the United States. Cape Blanco is also the home of Battle Rock, a location known for a small skirmish between white settlers and native Indians in the 1800s. I think you can guess who won that fight...

Along the way today we passed so many lumber trucks and so many lumber mills. We read somewhere that most of this gets shipped to China where it is turned into paper. One plus to this industry is that everything smells SO good. That's also another perk of having a convertible. We get to smell all the wonderfulness of the forests and seas!

Coos Bay and North Bend are considered Oregon's "Bay Area", but we loved it most because it is where Clausen's Oyster Company is located!

Just on the other side of this bridge are the oyster fields for the Clausen Oyster Company which is the largest oyster company in the United States. . We stopped in at the factory and found that it was an incredibly up close and personal look at the oyster industry. Just feet from the parking lot, there were two guys hosing off the recently harvested shells. Inside, there were five or ten people counting, measuring and bagging oysters. We learned later that the oysters were headed by the tens of thousands for L.A., which is Clausen Oyster Company's biggest port of sale. We told the woman who came in from bagging that we were on our honeymoon and she thought we were so cute, she gave Jason a free Clausen Oyster T-shirt and me a free sample of the oysters! They were SO good. I have never had an oyster so fresh before and it literally melted in my mouth. It may be cheesy. but this was one of our favorite stops so far on the trip.

From the oyster fields, we headed to the first of our lighthouse stops- the Umpqua Lighthouse.

Next, we headed for a place Jason was really excited for: The Sea Lion Caves! When we got there, though, the admission fee was just exorbitant. We learned from a local that if we just drove up the road about 100 yards, we would see some sea lions on the beach.

At first when we got there, we didn't see any sea lions which made Jason really sad (see pic above). Luckily, we we looked off the other side, there they were! (pics below)

The seas lions made Jason very happy.

But they smelled VERY bad.

Next we headed to the Heceta Head light house, but sadly it was under renovation so we couldn't see it. We did get this pretty cool shot of the bridge right below the lighthouse, though.

After Heceta Head, we FINALLY saw some rain for the first time this trip!

But Jason said it was only a drizzle and refused to put the top up on the convertible. It was SO cold!

Finally, we pulled into our final destination for the day: Newport!

Our hotel isn't spectacular this time (I really should call it a motel), but it still has a really beautiful view from the room and it has a somewhat Northwestern flare to it.

Newport has a lot of stuff to do in it, but we had some extra time this afternoon, so we decided to go see Prometheus. It was fun to go to the movies in such a small town. It had a really different feeling to it- almost as if it were an old-fashioned theater.

After the movie, we stopped at the Yaquina Head Lighthouse, which was just an incredible site. I just love these attractions that are so specific to the region of the country we are in.

At the bottom of the lighthouse was a beach that contained a series of tide pools. We just happened to be there during low tide, which revealed a side of the ocean we had never seen. nestled between the rocks on the beach, small tide pools collected to provide life to mussels, star fish, snails, sea anemone and seaweed. It was like being at an aquarium until we would look up and see the ocean right there in front of us. It was a stunning sight to see.

Our last stop before heading to dinner is a new one to Newport. On June 7th, a HUGE piece of concrete washed ashore in the Agate State Beach Park. At first glance, it's a monstrosity to the attractiveness of the beach. Upon further investigation, we learned that this isn't just any piece of concrete. It's actually a 66ft dock that was detached from it's port in JAPAN during last years tsunami! The dock has traveled over 5,000 miles from it's starting point to this place on the beach outside of Newport, OR. It was really amazing to see. Here is a story from the Wall Street journal about it:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303753904577452263866717188.html

The Agate State Beach Park is a really beautiful place too, but during low tide it was insane how far out we could see. It was such a huge beach- definitely one of the biggest we have seen so far.

Finally, we headed to the Bay District for dinner at Mo's, a local spot famous for it's clam chowder. Mo's did not disappoint, and I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good local place to eat in this town.

Finally, we headed back to the hotel to watch the sunset over the ocean. I will miss these nights when our trip is over! I have gotten very used to seeing the sunset over the water every night.