In Search of the ROGUE One-eyed Willy

Yaquina Harbor in Newport



JOY!

Exploring the tide pools at Cobblestone Beach

We left Crater Lake on Saturday and spent the next 5 days traveling the Pacific Coast Highway (Hwy. 101) up the coast of Oregon.  I had high expectations for this leg of our journey and I’m happy to say that the Oregon Coast lived up to my expectations.  The Pacific Coast Highway is really amazing – it runs between the ocean and the string of coastal mountains.  Hugging the coast, it offers awesome views of the Oregon Coast and the Pacific Ocean.  The coast is dotted with volcanic formations called sea stacks that make great homes for lots of sea animals.  We stopped at Cape Perpetua for lunch overlooking the coast.  We continued on to our campground – Beachside State Park.  From our campsite we had just a short walk to the beach.  The sand here is more like Charleston’s – not black like the northern California Coast.  We were both so excited to have the sand between our toes!  We went for a nice walk, relaxed, listened to the waves, and threw the football for a bit.  Falling asleep to the sound of the Pacific Coast waves was really calming.  The next morning we made our way to Newport.  I planned most of the trip because I enjoy doing things like that.  I asked Jake for his input and he is so go-with-the-flow that he said he was fine with anywhere and anything.  I came home one day after school in early May and Jake was beaming.  He said he did find a place he wanted to visit and he found a place for us to stay.  Newport, Oregon was his choice – and our housing – an apartment right above the Rogue Public House.  Rogue is one of Jake’s favorite micro-breweries and he was ecstatic about the possibility of staying there.  “We even get to check-in with the bartender!  And we get Rogue beer in our fridge!”  So we found ourselves in Newport 5 hours before check-in time.  It was so easy to find things to do to fill the day.  Newport is a fishing village.  We grabbed a bite to eat at a little coffee shop overlooking Newport’s fleet of fishing boats.  We walked along the bay and were drawn down a pier by the barking of sea lions.  We spent about 30 minutes watching them interact with each other – funny creatures.  Then we headed over to the ocean side of Newport to take a look at the beach.  We took a long walk on Nye Beach and went to explore Newport’s 2 lighthouses – Yaquina Bay and Yaquina Head.  Both offered lots of information, excellent views, and fun climbs to the top.  Yaquina Head also offered access to amazing tide pools.  This is where we met Walt and Judy - a nice couple from Delaware volunteering at this park.  They come to Newport every other summer and spend their spring volunteering in Pisgah National Forest back in North Carolina.  They had their scopes set up for us to see loads of seals and coastal birds.  We hope to see them in April when Jake will complete a pharmacy rotation on the Cherokee Indian Reservation not too far from Pisgah.  We walked down to the tide pools on Cobblestone Beach – named for the black lava stones that adorn the beach – no sand.  We explored the tide pools with bright green anemones, deep purple urchins, and 12 inch sea stars.  My mom would have LOVED it here – after all she is the best “touch tank interpreter” in all of North Carolina!  This was like a real life touch tank…so much fun!  After a full day of exploring it was time for the highlight of Jake’s trip – he got to walk into the Rogue Public House and check into our home for the next 2 days.  The employees at Rogue are very friendly and helpful and our apartment was clean, spacious, and had a FREE washer and dryer!!!!  We REALLY needed to do laundry – we had about 5 loads.  We spent the next 2 days exploring the port town of Newport, driving to nearby Lincoln City to get our Subaru checked out and ready for the next 4,000 miles of our trip, and getting to know everything Rogue.  We really enjoyed the brewery tour at Rogue and learning about their community-based company.  When they made their home in Newport, the land-lady promised never to raise their rent if they followed 3 important rules:  1.They had to keep a naked picture of her in every Rogue brewery (there is a picture of her at age 65 in a bathtub in France).  2. They had to provide housing above their public houses (the apartment Jake found).  3. They had to “feed the fishermen”.  Like I said, Newport is a fishing village – some years are really good and some are really terrible.  Rogue took this to mean that they needed to support the community and they take this very seriously.  Jake enjoyed trying Rogue’s beer and I enjoyed their homemade root beer.  We really fell in love with Newport and hope to return one day.   We told one of the local shop owners that we were heading to Astoria next and she told us that Astoria was a “magical” place and we would love it there.

Morning coffee on the Astoria waterfront

Seastacks at Cannon Beach (from Goonies)

Sunset over the Pacific Ocean

So off we went further north on the Pacific Coast Highway until we reached the mouth of the Columbia River.  This is where the quaint town of Astoria sits.  Astoria has a beautiful river walk that follows the bank of the Columbia.  A lot of the shops and restaurants are out on piers overlooking the water.  It is such a lovely spot.  We walked the riverfront and met the “official greeter of Astoria” who told us about Astoria, asked if we were enjoying it, took a picture of my “lovely face” (in his words), and gave me a dollar to remember him and spread the word about the magical town of Astoria.  Haha…you never know who you’re going to meet.  We drove to the Astoria Column – the highest point in Astoria that provides a cool view of the city and the 4.5 mile bridge across the Columbia River.  Then we headed up 38^th street to the Goonies house and did the Truffle Shuffle just like Chunk.  We also drove to Cannon Beach to check out one of the best beaches in the area that also happens to be home to the sea stacks featured in the Goonies – the ones that match up with the Fratelli brother’s restaurant to lead the kids to One-eyed Willy’s ship!  We had a blast exploring Astoria and even kept our eyes peeled for pharmacies because we both agreed we could live in this magical little town.  Our campground was across the Columbia River in Washington State at a park called Cape Disappointment.  We settled in and went to watch our first ever sunset over the ocean – can’t see that on the east coast!  It was a beautiful end to our trip up the Oregon Coast!  We’re off to Olympic National Park to camp on the beach for a couple of nights.  We hope all is well where you are!