Newport, Oregon

The second half of our trip to the Central Oregon Coast included a stay in Newport. We just happened to be in Newport during their annual Wine and Seafood Festival. Sometimes the good things in life just fall in your lap.

We took a walk along the harbor to see the fishing and crabbing boats. Some of them were quite weathered and you could tell they had been through more than one Perfect Storm. They each have so much character; this one proved perfect for a title pic.

Crab pots piled on a fishing boat. After watching "Deadliest Catch" on TV, I have a lot of respect for how hard crab fishermen work for their living. They risk life and limb all so that we can have some tasty crab legs and fresh fish for dinner.

We arrived at our oceanfront hotel in the early afternoon. We had a first floor room so the balcony was essentially an extension of the yard leading to the beach.

Here's the view from our room...looking out onto the Pacific.

This is the view north from our hotel.

We went out on the beach at night to get Zoe some more exercise (see video below at end of this post). The lights of the hotels glistened off the wet sand, giving the illusion of a wet asphalt parking lot at night. As mentioned in earlier posts, I can't get over how large these beaches are. At low tide, it seems you could walk half a mile before you hit the water.

OK, on to the main event....the annual Newport Wine and Seafood Festival. We sampled our fair share of clam chowder, oysters, crab, smoked salmon, shrimp, and any other seafood you can imagine. We also, ahem, imbibed in some of the local wines.
Here are a couple original seafood concoctions I have seen nowhere else:

Shrimp Burrito.

Fried oyster sliders
(sliders are mini sandwiches, for those of you unaware of the amazing phenom called White Castle...which does not exist out here in Oregon....boo)
Em and I powered down quite a few of these little gems. They were my favorite of the festival.

Just in case anyone tried too many of the wine samples, they already had a posse rounded up and ready to lay down the law. Sometimes I feel like I am not really that far from Ohio. :)

Having ate more than our fill at the festival, we went for a walk along the pier. There was quite a crowd gathered to check out these sea lions (who seemed to follow us up from Florence).

This one was posing for the camera like a champ.

Later we stopped by a little hole in the wall seafood joint for yes, more food. They cooked their crab in these large vats outside. Genuine.

Their oysters were only $1 each and had to be by far the largest oysters I have ever had. Here Kristina displays one such colossal oyster.

Before heading back to Portland, we stopped by Cape Foulweather.

The weather, however, was not all that bad.

More of the coast.

Devil's Punchbowl - a huge hole formed naturally by water erosion of soft rock.
(*Note the guy in the red shirt on the right....OK, I guess I am not too mad at him for being in my shot b/c it gives size perspective.)
This is not to be confused with Devil's Churn in the previous post (another area of rock erosion by the sea). Apparently they associate water erosion with the Devil a lot around here?? Someone please explain.

Another enormous beach.....sigh.

View of the coast from a high vantage point.

The black spots in the water (minus the rock in the lower left) are kelp forests.

The end of another great trip to the coast.

Zoe running on the beach (video).