Friday, September 9, 2011

Reedsport OR to Seaside OR

Today we are traveling up the coast and we get to see more stuff today, actually get to be a tourist.

We saw the Oregon Sand Dunes, Sea Lion Caves, Yaquina Head Lighthouse, Sea Rock, Haystack Rock and other sites in between.

Our favorite stop was in Newport OR. It was time for a coffee break so we headed into the historical section of Newport. There was a nice harbor and we met with a local crab fisherman. He was so nice and explained to us that fishing for crabs was so easy and very relaxing. He had is crab baskets in the water, so we watched him bring one up. He told us that all the female crabs had to be released and the male crabs has to be a certain size to keep. He showed us how we could tell which crabs were male and female and also was the penalty was if you are found with a female crab. You can rent the baskets and stuff and fish for a day, which a family was doing. I even held a crab, but had to throw her back. Vickie took the picture of that and I will be getting a cd of her photos.

It was a nice and relaxing time, we walked along the harbor, saw a commercial fishing company deal with shrimp and saw the sea lions. They lay along the harbor next to the commercial fishing places. I suppose they get to eat the fish stuff that is throw out, but we didn't see any of that.

The one thing that I wanted to do was see a lighthouse, so we stopped at Yaquina Head. This is a national park area so we got to use our passes and the ranger was originally from Hamilton MT. She was excited to see Montana people. I didn't go tour the lighthouse, just walked around. The rest of the party wasn't interested.

We ate lunch in Lincoln City at a place called Mo's. The claim to fame here is the clam chowder, which was good but I liked the chowder in Gold Beach better. This little chain of Mo's serves over 600,000 pounds of clam chowder a year.

We finally made our way to Seaside, found the motel and ran into a snafu. Sandi had made all the reservations for this trip, so when she went to check in the front desk told her that they only had two rooms and a note that Sandi changed the reservations last night. Sandi was upset and kept telling the lady that that is wrong. I ran out and grabbed our sheet with the confirmation numbers. When I went back inside, the front desk lady very rudely told Sandi that she could keep saying no, but the computer says that there were only two rooms reserved. She changed her tune when I showed her the confirmation numbers. We did get rooms, but not the ones that were reserved. Gary and I took the single queen room and it was no bigger than a postage stamp. Had to crawl into bed and we didn't have room to move around without bumping into each other. No place to put our bags either. Pat & Sandi ended up in a room that is a pet room, which she wasn't too happy about. At least we got rooms even though we were spread out all over the hotel. Our room didn't have hot water either. When we checked out I told the girl at the front desk about no hot water and she asked me how long did I run the water. Give me a break. I told her a long time. I do have a survey to fill out for this motel and they are not going to like my answers.

I was able to get some sunset photos on the ocean here at Seaside. When we checked in we were given a coupon for 15% off either dinner or breakfast at the restaurant in the hotel. We chose to use it for dinner. Good thing because when we went down for breakfast at 7:00, the restaurant wasn't open yet. We ate breakfast at this cute restaurant nearby and I had the most delicious blueberry pancakes. Couldn't eat it all though.

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