Lincoln City Beach

I'm way behind with this post, I'm just so lazy these days, I don't feel like doing 'nuttin'.
I'm just unmotivated, tired & unproductive .. it must be the heat that's wearing me down, after a few cooler days it's back into the high 90s again today
So, looking to cool off some, we decided to drive to the beach once more on Monday.
Previously we'd explored the coastal area to the north of Lincoln City so this time we concentrated on the city itself and the area to the south, all the way to Newport.

But first we checked out a road just north of the city, called Three Rocks Road, which we'd passed a couple of times going north to Tillamook. It looked like it was leading to a nice area and we were hoping it might have beach access?



It turned out it brought us to Knight County Park, a popular river access area for crabbers and fishermen, where the beautiful Salmon River flows lazily into the Pacific, creating some beautiful estuaries especially at low tide, and about a five or six minute walk to the beginning of the Cascade Head trail.



It's a beautiful area well known for wildlife spotting, apparently bald eagles, sea lions, elk, deer and even otters have been seen here!
Unfortunately luck was not with us, although we saw an interesting, large, dark shape making it's way through the water, jumping for fish every know and than, but we couldn't figure out what it was?

 

A little drive brought us at the other side of the river where we had our first cup of coffee of the morning, overlooking a large swampy area and looking back to where we'd just been ..




We wanted to check out a few RV Parks for future use while we were here so we looked at Devils lake RV park on ... you guessed it, Devil's Lake.
Not an easy park to take a picture of so I'm stealing one from the web here:

It's not a bad park, looks clean, a little close together but do-able, especially if you have a site on the outside, and some might even have a glimpse of the lake ..

Which is very pretty by the way ..

Another campground we checked out was Logan RV Park, about a block or 2 off the beach and part of the big casino 'Chinook Winds' just north of the city.

The park is basically a 'parking lot', pretty much all asphalt, but neat and clean. Unfortunately they don't allow you to stay any longer than 4 weeks, and for $345 a week it's not cheap either so I don't think that's going to work for us, unless we'd want to take a short vacation at some time.

The casino actually had some interesting looking ocean-view hotel rooms that we want to check out. Maybe fun for a long weekend getaway?!



Next on our list: Premier RV Resorts of Lincoln City, just south of town.
The drive through town can be a slow, congested one during summer's high season and especially on a nice day, but on this (rather cool) Monday morning we breezed through in a few minutes.



This park is right of the Hwy but a little set back, sites are all concrete pads with grass. It was immaculate, a little crowded but OK, full hookups. Some sites have an ocean view.
The beautiful sandy beach is just across the street and access is easy because there is a pedestrian tunnel under hwy101.
People rave about this park, at $420-498 a week it is very expensive but apparently there are monthly rates which are usually cheaper.

Just past town, this lone pine tree is growing on an inter-tidal rock in Siletz Bay ...

We stopped at two more parks, Holiday Hills and Sea and Sand but one required a semi-permanent membership and the other had no beach access or views.
Driving further south we hit the town of Depoe Bay where we stopped for lunch at the Tidal Raves Seafood Grill, a 'Stylish American restaurant on an oceanside cliff with dramatic views serving American fish dishes.'

There was a little bit of a wait, this is a popular place, but we had great seats with amazing views of the rocky bay-front. We took some pictures for/of a couple and they did the same for us:

The food, rock fish tacos and pan fried Pacific oysters, although pricey, was delicious! Fresh, hot, very tasty and spiced quite different than what you normally get.
To top everything of we saw a whale come into the bay, spouting water and slapping it's tale!

            

                           

How cool is that?

Afterward we checked out yet an other campground in Depoe Bay proper, but it would be rather tight to get in for us and it looked a little 'rough around the edges' with too many very old and run down RVs.
We took a little side road of the 101, the Otter Crest Loop, which actually is old Highway 101 - before there even was a "101"! Built in the 1920's it is a beautiful, one lane (a big landslide took the road out and they did not rebuild it wide enough for two modern cars), local scenic drive.
We crossed the Ben Jones bridge and stopped to admire the view:

You come out at Cape Foulweather (named by Captain Cook during a stormy March in 1778):

We stopped for another peek at the view, which goes on forever ...



And we noticed a few boats slowly going back and forth in the ocean below ..

 

Well, what do you know ..  they were on the lookout for whales!
Turns out Depoe Bay is a hot spot for whales looking for food this time of year.
Although the best time to see them is from mid-March to the end of May when you'll see gray whales migrating to Alaska from Mexico, summer and fall brings resident whales close to shore to feed from June to mid-November.

It didn't take long before we saw some spouts and two whales, one larger and a smaller one, repeatedly came up to the surface ..

These are Blue Whales and they are the largest mammals to ever live on earth.
They can grow up to 30 meters which is equivalent to three school buses lined together. They can weigh as much as 440,000 pounds or 200,000 Kg.
Some of their organs are the largest ever found in the animal kingdom. The heart of a blue whale can weigh as much as a car at around 400 pounds or 180kg!

To say we were thrilled to see them is an understatement. Wow, what a wonderful experience!


OK, onward! Our last stop was the city of Newport, the largest and busiest of all and the farthest south we would want to go for a future stay.
We passed the old (1871) Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, sitting pretty on it's basalt rock outcropping ..

And after a couple of miles we drove into Newport:

Home of the Oregon Coast Aquarium and the 3,260 feet long Yaquina Bay Bridge, build in 1936, superseding the last ferry crossing on the highway.



We drove through town, over said bridge and made our way down to the Newport Marina & RV Park, situated right next to the Aquarium and, even better, the Rogue Brewery & Rogue Distillery!

That parking lot behind the marina is the RV Park

Most sites in the park have a nice view of the bridge, and the ones up front of the marina as well. The sites are fairly roomy with actual grass in between, not a tree in sight though ..

Everything looks clean and tidy and there are lots of nice walking and biking paths all around.
The price is not bad either (for the area), $1078 per month, all in all this may be a contender!

Well, I think we have a fairly good idea of what's out there for now, we'll see when the time comes (somewhere next Fall) what we'll do.
I'm still leaning towards Pacific City in the north, less touristy and thus less traffic, and a lot quieter. Somewhat cheaper as well, always important!

We drove home via route 20 (which is apparently the longest road in the United States!), which took us 2 hours.
Definitively the longest we'd want it to be when James has to commute for work once a week, as we hope is going to happen in the future.