Northwest Jewelry

We spent the last summer weekend at the beach–we usually stay in the Lincoln City area, but this time, we fired up the motorhome and went to Newport, Oregon, which is the Lincoln County seat.  Newport not only has miles of beautiful beach, it also has the bay.  The bayfront is an interesting combination of tourist traps, boat docks, and working crab and fishing boats. 

But I get ahead of myself.  On the way to Newport, you pass through Lincoln City and Depoe Bay.  Depoe Bay has the distinction of having the world’s smallest harbor (or at least they think they do!)  But it’s also a very cool town, with ocean and no beach on one side, and shops on the other other–take a look:

                              

It’s kind of hard to see, but this very neat town has a couple of great oceanside restaurants, a lot of shopping, whale watching tours and of the harbor, and some of the greatest shore whale watching on the coast!

One last picture as we leave Depoe Bay.

We stayed at Pacific Shores Motorcoach Resort which is at the north end of Newport.  I highly recommend this resort–they’re not inexpensive, but it’s a beautiful location.  We were lucky enough to get an oceanfront site–here was our view as we were sitting in the living room of our motorhome. That is the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse in the distance.  The picture isn’t that great, but the view was spectacular! 

Here’s another one with a view from the front of our motorhome as we were parked at the site.   

 

A view of the Newport Bay waterfront from the Smuggler’s Cove parking lot–this restaurant is now, unfortunately, closed, but we spent some good nights there…

We ate lunch at Mo’s Annex and were seated at the window.  This guy was RIGHT outside my window–probably no more than 3-5 feet away from me.  He was totally oblivious to all the people on the other side of the window eating lunch right next to him!

After lunch, we walked down the bayfront to go see the sea lions.  They have an area where they hang out waiting for the fishermen to return and clean their fish on the dock.  It is so much fun to watch them–they’re very territorial, and the ones you see sunning themselves on the dock will bark and fight another sea lion trying to take their place on the dock. 

And finally, the Yaquina Bay Bridge–we got this view from the same dock where we watched the sea lions. 

I love this area of the central Oregon coast, especially on a beautiful sunny day like this!