Oregon Coast?

When you get up at 5:20 am you know you have a plan in mind. We have five days to get to Portland and it will probably only take us two.......so we caught an early morning bus and headed for Newport on the Oregon Coast. At this time of day Norm was admiring Corvallis's garbage cans.

They have flowers on the top. Really quite nice. 

By 8 am we were on the coast, bikes included. First matter of business, breakfast. We remembered from last year when we biked through a great neighbourhood, Nye Beach and a wonderful bakery. 

Today we had more time and planned to spend the night. Panini served us a baked ham, spinach, egg and cheese dish. Excellent! 

And a latte. One of the best Norm has had.

Still early, it was time to do a quick check of the beach. Miles and miles of sand. Beautiful.

And as usual, art work to enjoy.

Even Yellow Bunny was interested in the whale sculpture.

Next a place to stay but since it was raining and the room wasn't ready it seemed like the perfect time for Norman to go postcard hunting.

He is showing off his haul, 34 old and some what garish postcards.

Time to explore those beaches, so went walking to build up an appetite for lunch.

Cool rock formations.

But one of the saddest parts of walking the beach is all the bits of plastic that you see everywhere. Tiny speckles cover the sand.

Rick Steves has a theory about restaurants. It is always best to walk at least five blocks from whatever tourist site you are seeing to find the best and most affordable food. Norm now believes me. He has one of the worst fish and chips, previously frozen fish and the circles were tasteless potatoes. Good. beer  though, a glass of Dead Guy Ale. Of course, the server said, "A very good choice."

I stuck to a small cup of clam chowder since we were at the Chowder House. It was okay.

We have now checked into the Comfort Inn, probably the classiest stay yet.

While biking I found that I couldn't change my lefthand gears. So we took the bike to Bike Newport, where last year I had bought a carrying case for the front of my bike. Nice guys there. Not knowing what was wrong they sent us off for awhile. We walked for over an hour again along miles of beaches. Once back, not good news. The cable has been shredded inside the shifter mechanism. They called later saying that they have ordered a new part should be in tomorrow by noon so we can catch the bus back to Corvallis to continue our trip north. 

All day in Newport it has rained then stopped and gotten quite hot only to rain again. In Portland, we saw on the TV news they had major hailstorms, some of the ice particles as big as a quarter. Once in our room while Norm relaxed I thought I would just walked four blocks to grab a snack for dinner, ham, cheese, bread, wine, chips and yogurt, the necessities. I actually came back to the room to grab my raincoat, the only rain item I brought on this trip. Well by the second block it poured. I snuck into a law office for protection. I decided to just go for it. I was soaked. My pants stuck to me and were so wet they were dragging along the road. Unbelievable! Headed back to the room before it started again. Wild weather. 

After our picnic in our room we ventured out once more to see the Newport Bridge, which carries Highway 101 over the Yaquina River and Newport harbour. It was built in the mid-1930s and those towers you see at either end of the main arch are Art Deco. And yes it rained. 

But if you are lucky you get a rainbow.

The last stop is Norm getting his evening coffee, Dutch Bros of course.