Newport Oregon/ Crab Island

Our trip to Newport was amazing. Oregon was so beautiful and the weather was out of control great. It only rained on us one day out of eight- that is unheard of! We stayed in a little condo on the Yaquina Bay. It had a beautiful view of the bridge and was close to the historic waterfront road. It was a fun experience to be in such a unique place. The town and people were just like you would see in a movie of an old fishing town. We would have loved to just sit and people watch, but there was too much to do.

Crabbing was probably the best part of the trip. Chip bought a crab pot and joined the locals. It was amazing how easy it was. He would just throw the pot in and 10 minutes later he would pull it up with 5-10 crabs in it. Blakeslie absolutely loved the whole experience. It was like fishing, only gratifying- we actually caught stuff! The club house had a place to cook the crabs so we would take our butter and eat them hot and fresh. I thought Blakeslie would have trouble eating them since she named every one that we caught. (Sally, Lightning McQueen, Crunchy, Red, and Sonji- just to name a few) She liked the meat so I guess she didn’t mind. By the end of the week Blakeslie stopped calling it Oregon and instead called it Crab Island. She sang a song she knows called Pig Island and changed the words to “Crab Island, Crab Island- what a wonderful place to be.” She was right!

We were lucky to have such great weather so we hung out at the beach a lot. Blakeslie loved the tide pools, playing in the sand, and flying her new Ollie the Octopus kite.

On Wednesday we went north to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. It was so fun to watch the assembly line and taste all the cheese. The drives up and back were fun to see all the beautiful scenery and to check-out all the personalities of the little cities.

We stopped at all the lighthouses that were along the coast. They were fun to explore and because the weather was so clear we could see forever up the coast. The best part of visiting the Yaquina Head Lighthouse was the discovery of the Wholly Bears. They were fuzzy caterpillars that were all over the grounds. Blakeslie fell in love with them.

To all the Allreds and Benchs- recognize this:
We couldn’t believe this when we saw it on our drive up the coast. It was a little pancake restaurant. That book has been pulled off the shelves- but we weren’t really surprised to see this. Some parts of this strange place were very backwards.

If you would like to see the pictures please click on the album below

Little Black Sambo

One day we went to another little bay south of Newport where the crabbing was suppose to be even better. (I don’t know how it could get any better, but we tried it anyway.) Chip didn’t have much luck. Instead, he walked away with a new nickname. Blakeslie started calling him “Seaweed King,” because all he would pull up was gobs of seaweed. Chip blamed it on the changing tide, but we thought it was pretty funny!

On our adventure south we also found these random gigantic wood cutouts. We couldn’t pass up a picture.

We also explored the Newport Aquarium, the Waterfront Street with the seals, and the condo’s indoor pool.

We truly had a blast on our trip. We can’t wait to go back- we are already craving crab and Mo’s famous clam chowder. We highly recommend visiting this fun, beautiful, and unique place.