March 31st was our second day in Newport and it rained over night, at times heavily. When I got up in the morning, just before 8:00AM, it was heavily overcast, but calm. While we were getting ready for the day and having breakfast, it showered off and on. It looked as though it wouldn't be a great day.
We decided to head down to the historic Bay Front in Newport. It is a mix of Tourist traps, gift shops, restaurants and industrial sites. There is an active fishery here, that includes some processing plants. I am quite familiar with three of the tourist traps... The Wax Works [wax museum], Ripley's Believe it or Not, and Oregon Undersea Gardens. My company provided skylights for these three projects back in the early 1980's and they are all still here and still functioning. As with my last visit 25 years ago, they again only served to lighten my wallet. The wax museum is OK... we skipped Ripleys, and the Undersea Gardens was a big disappointment, even to the girls. But, the two older ones really liked the wax museum.
We wandered around town for a while, bought some salt water taffy and some of the typical tacky tourist souvenirs, and then had lunch at a local cafe. The sun came out off and on during the day, but there were also a few light showers... pretty reasonable weather all the same.
The City of Newport recently installed some new platforms for the local population of California Sea Lions. Apparently the females stay behind back in California, but the adult and juvenile males migrate up the coast and spend some time in places like here in Newport. This year something has brought them north in record numbers. A shop keeper told us that there was some sort of environmental issue with their food supply down in California. Now the city has set up a charity to collect funds for the construction of a viewing dock for all the tourists. Right now the tourists are all over a dock that is supposed to be shared by some of the fish processing plants and the businesses are getting a little annoyed at all the activity. In fact the locals are getting pretty frustrated and tired of all these Sea Lions. They are very loud and agressive and have pretty much taken over the place.
After leaving the bay front we headed over to the massive Bay Bridge over the Yaquina Bay. I took a couple of photographs here with my view camera before we all headed down onto the rocky flats beside the bridge, that had been exposed by the low tide. The girls explored for a while and saw a hermit crab, some anemones, and a few small rock fish. They collected the obligatory sea shells and rocks before we hiked back up to the parking area.
Hailey, Annelise and I decided to try walking out onto the Bay Bridge. Anna was pretty brave and made it quite a way before turning back. Hailey and I continued out a little further, to the main arch, before turning back. After leaving the bridge we picked up some take out Mexican Food for dinner, and headed back to the house. By the time we finished up our evening meal it was starting to rain again. So we gave up on the idea of an evening walk on the beach and just hit the hot tub for a while before settling down for the evening.
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