We woke up to yet another rainy dreary day in Corvallis, OR. Temperature in the 50s but with the wind chill it must have been a feel like in the 30s. We had the Oregon coast on the plan for today and Jan woke up all excited like Christmas morning anxious to go down and see what whale sightings would unfold today. We were headed out of camp around 8 and west on Hwy 20 we went. The road traced thru some beautiful spruce covered hillside country with occasional single gas station communities along the way.
Hwy 20 teed into 101 at Newport where we went north and got our first sight of the pacific ocean – looking extra fierce today in the stormy weather.
We kept going toward Depoe Bay where the State run Whale Center was located on the rocky beachhead and deep enough where the whales could come right up next to eat to feed. We walked in right when they had spotted a gray beyond one of the buoy markers in the bay. Of course after we got there it never appeared again. Calling in the next day to see if they had been seeing whales Jan asked how many they had seen on Sunday. The reply was just that one. I guess they didn’t like the weather either.
We went thru the displays at the whale center, hanging around to see if anything else would appear but gave up after an hour or so and proceeded to check out the shops across the street. Weather seemed to be getting worse with occasional heavy rains, so we drove up a ways to an overlook of the ocean and had lunch in the truck while we watched waves bust against the rocky shore. We still kept an occasional watch looking out to the open water for whales, but nothing.
After lunch we reversed and went back south on 101, stopping at one of the many state parks along the way. A quick break in the weather allowed us to get out and check out the coast a little closer – occasionally rain catching us a ways from the truck. Not seeing much whale activity, we challenged ourselves to catch pictures of the rough seas as the waves crashed over the rocks.
Of course Jan was bundled up like it was dead of winter in the brisk 52 degrees and very windy shore.
While the Oregon coast was really spectacular even in this weather, I was disappointed the whale watching was dead.
We took a slow ride on a loop off 101 that had some really neat overlooks and bridges like this one.
We stopped at Cape Foulweather, an historical place, but these days a gift shop built on a rocky point 400’ above the coast. We certainly agreed an appropriate name based on today’s weather. It had a heck of a view though up and down the coast.
We made another stop at Beverly State Park, which I considered staying at, but never could find any detail info or pictures on it when I was researching campgrounds a few months ago. As it turned out, it’s a very nice campground off the beach in a wooded area. Has full hookups and you wouldn’t know you were near the beach until you walk out under the 101 bridge that separated it from the beach. Sun started making a few more frequent appearances, but would cloud back up and rain again. We walked the beach a ways, finding some fossilized shells the park person back at the whale center told us about.
We eventually made it back to Newport where we found some shops by Nye Beach to check out. Jan found a bead store to venture into while I opted to walk down to Nye Beach and see what it looked like. We wrapped up that stop and made our way to our last stop at Yaquina Bay Lighthouse.
A nice lighthouse that looked the least like any lighthouse we’ve seen. Talk about bad planning…this lighthouse served from 1871 and was decommissioned in 1874 after only 3 years. Turned out it’s location made it hard for sailors to see and the light it was fitted with was not powerful enough. So another lighthouse was built a little further up the coast in a better location and this one was put out of service.
As we left the lighthouse park, we made a final shot of the Newport Bridge. All the bridges around here are artful sights with their long symmetrical arches.
We wrapped up the day with an hour drive back to Corvallis, eating hamburgers at the trailer for dinner and calling it a day.
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