The town of Depoe Bay, rather than having their fireworks on the 4th have them on the 3rd, which is kind of a bonus, since that happens to be my birthday! Sooooo…after a much longer drive than we thought it would be, we finally arrived at Depoe Bay and checked into our room. Our room was on the second floor with a corner that had a window seat and windows facing the ocean and the little cove that the Inn sits on.
Every room in this place is provided with a pair of binoculars so that the occupants can watch the pod of gray whales that live off the coast at Depoe Bay year round. I love this! We hadn’t been there fifteen minutes before I spotted a whale spouting. I don’t exactly what it is, but I, personally, find watching whales out in the ocean to be fascinating and exciting. It’s like finding unexpected treasure. They look like they are having such fun!!
We watched what appeared to be two whales for an hour or so, both from the room and outside before settling in for an evening of reading and TV.
Friday, July 3
Ok, it’s official. Today I am 50 years old. I know some people who seem traumatized by this. While not traumatized, I can hardly believe that I am really 50 years old!! In my head, I still feel in my mid-twenties somewhere, but my body tells me otherwise……..Enough about that!! After a lazy morning of browsing the internet, working on this journal and grabbing a cup of coffee at the nearby coffee store (actually within walking distance), I spent more time today just gazing out the window and watching whales. Today they came deep into the cove. I didn’t realize that the water in there was deep enough for the whales to come in that far, but apparently it is, because they played around in there for most of the day. It was great fun watching them.
When I returned upstairs after my internet browsing in the lobby, everyone sang Happy Birthday to me and gave me gifts. Tom and Tucker had each picked out some beautiful earrings and Megan a beautiful necklace from the gift shop at Lake Quinault Lodge. What a nice way to start my day!!
The weather here is the worst that we have had for the entire trip and it still isn’t awful. But it is cool and overcast and a bit windy and looks like it might rain. We talked about going to the tide pools at Yaquina Head (my favorite tide pools on the Oregon Coast), but decided against it, in hopes of having better weather tomorrow. We DID, however, go to the Lincoln City Factory Outlet stores for some family shopping. We ALL came away with some new shoes and some of us with new clothes. We then went to one of my new favorite places for dinner on the coast, a place called Tidal Raves. It is within walking distance of our hotel. In fact it sits just on the other side of the cove from our hotel, so , it, too has big sweeping views of the ocean from it’s dining room windows. Tom had what he said were some of the best fish (halibut) tacos ever, while I had their very yummy “rubbed” chicken. Megan had her usual chicken strips and fries, though upon tasting my chicken announced that she would like to return here for dinner the following evening so that she could have the “rubbed” chicken, too. Tucker wasn’t quite as impressed with his fare as the rest of us, unfortunately, even though they were kind enough to create a vegetable dish just for him.
After dinner, we had a bit of a break then it was time to set off for the fireworks show. When we were here a couple of years ago, we walked a path through a small neighborhood from the Inn to another cover where, we, along with several other folks sat and watched the fireworks away from the BIG crowd at the bay where the fireworks actually took place. This year, we walked to the same spot and we were the only ones there!! This kind of freaked us out. Made us think that maybe we had the wrong date or that the place where they shot the fireworks from was different. So we walked down the road to the actual spot where the fireworks were happening and joined hundreds of other people. Turns out we had just arrived and the other spot about an hour early. Next time we’ll know!! It was quite chilly out (I know, seems weird to put the words “chilly” and “4th of July” in the same sentence!), so we had blankets with us to wrap up in to stay warm. We actually got lucky enough to sit inside the shuttle bus that we would eventually be riding back to the hotel in, and stay warm while watching the fireworks. It was a great show and a nice finale to my birthday.
Saturday, July 4
Another morning where Tom & I got up first and walked over to the coffee store for a cup of coffee. Once the kids got up and had breakfast, we hung out for a while, then headed into Newport. The weather, once again, was not really very cooperative. Cool and foggy. Joe and Miranda were going to come over and join us today, but at 6:30 a.m., Joe called Tom to let him know that he was going to have to work at Illahe after all, (He had originally been told by someone that he was NOT on the schedule for this day) so he and Miranda would not be coming over. Total bummer. Once in Newport, we went to the local Saturday Farmer’s Market, where in the past, we had found some awesome (so I’m told, because I don’t like mushrooms!) locally grown mushrooms……shiitakes, maitakes, oyster and buttertop mushrooms, to be exact. We were in luck…….we found the folks who sell those and bought some to cook up for Tom and Tucker later. Not much else of interest at the Farmer’s market, so we decided to get lunch. I really wanted to go to the Canyon Way Bookstore and Restaurant, while Tucker was more interested in going to the Mongolian grill. So we browsed the bookstore for a bit, then Tom & Tucker headed up the street to the Mongolian grill place. Megan and I were seated and had just ordered when the guys showed up at our table. Apparently the Mongolian grill place was no longer there (even though their sign still was), so they joined us for lunch. This was, at one time, one of my favorite places to eat while at the coast. I have to say that this time around, I was not impressed. Tidal Raves has taken the spot as my favorite place to eat on the coast. After lunch, we were planning on going to the tide pools but we were still about two hours ahead of low tide. We decided to go on out to Yaquina Head anyway, because Megan wanted to go into the lighthouse there. Once we got out onto the point where the lighthouse is, it was REALLY quite chilly and very windy. We went up the one hundred and some stairs to the top of the light house, then headed back downstairs.
The water was still too high for us to check out the tide pools and we all were pretty cold, so we decided to head on back to the room and do the tide pools at a future date.
Upon returning to the room, we
played some family games………..some game similar to score four (tic, tac, toe) and some Yahtzee. Then off to dinner; Megan & I back to Tidal Raves, while Tom & Tucker ate Chinese at a place across the street called “Wing Wa”. Everybody seemed quite happy with their meals. We watched a Star Wars episode and all talked about how good a trip it had been but that we were all feeling ready to go home. So, off to bed we all went and after coffee in the morning we hit the road for home. Another memory made.
1 comment:
What a wonderful vacation, and what fun for me to read about it day by day!!! Your photos are great. (I may scarf one or two for art---I especially liked the seagull visitor!) Much love and warm hugs from Indiana!
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