UPDATED: Just lucky, I guess. A few days ahead of a 90-degree-plus Northwest heat wave that ended a day after we got back home to Seattle, our family took off on a long planned nine-day trip to the cool Oregon Coast. Our base for a week was Bandon By The Sea, where the Coquille River meets the Pacific, about a 90-minute drive from the California border. More on that in upcoming posts. But getting there - anywhere - in coastal Oregon is half the fun, or more. On the road to Bandon, we stopped for a night in the coastal town of Newport, a salty and bustling place where you can buy fresh fish off the docks, and hear ranchera music blasting from the bayside fish and seafood processing operations. Do yourself a favor and skip the Wax Museum, though.
Unlike a nearby tourist hub named Lincoln City which also lies on the coastal highway known as Route 101, there's a lot more character than meets the eye on the main through road in Newport. In contrast, going through Lincoln City my curiousity was dampened considerably by the tacky lighthouse replica, plethora of tourista rabbit warrens, bad traffic, outlet mall, and the huge billboard on the way into town promoting the hideously botoxed, facelifted-to-death 70s singer David Cassidy (ex of TV's The Partridge Family) at the local Chinook Winds Casino. Poor guy. He should be running a venture capital firm or something, not reprising his sad and sappy shtick at an Oregon coast casino, for God's sake. I may be selling Lincoln City short, but not by much, I think.
Anyhow, Newport is lovingly described in this recent Los Angeles Times profile. Our foursome stayed one night in the comfortable Spindrift suite of the Driftwood Village Motel north of town.
A short path leads to a beach from which the Yaquina Head Lighthouse is visible. You can tour the lighthouse and peruse the copious tidepools at the adjoining Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area. I took this picture on the beach down a short path from The Driftwood, looking south along the coast toward the lighthouse and Yaquina Head, shortly after our arrival.
After that it was south toward town and dinner, with a stop on the way to bask in a brutal sandstorm at Agate Beach. What fun! Seriously. Have you ever made sand angels? Can you arrange your lips and nostrils so no sand gets through? As you'll see in this photo of mine below, the Agate Beach winds sometimes create platform shapes from the sand, unlike the usual sloping dunes on many central and southern Oregon coast beaches. This is looking north toward the Yaquina Head Lighthouse.
We dusted ourselves off and headed down to Newport's historic bayfront, where the classic Yaquina Bay Bridge - the subject of this Corvallis Times-Gazette article - looms large. Here the Yaquina River meets the ocean. A few of my pix follow: from near the marina (below, left), and another taken a bit closer to the bridge and later in the evening, from a pier in the heart of the bayfront (below, right).
For dinner, there's a great alternative to the venerable, and jammed Mo's, and Mo's Annex. A bit east of Bay Street's hubub, back toward the marina, we stumbled upon a new-to-us Newport eatery named Local Ocean Seafoods. It's been open one year and a few months, and has a sleek but understated look that said to me, good fresh seafoood for locals. Perhaps it was the fish market inside with white salmon among the offerings, plus the open kitchen surrounded by counter seating (there are tables as well), and the roll-up clear glass garage door-ish front of the house, which lends a nice open-air feel to the whole place, weather permitting. We snagged a table just before the line started to run out the door.
We were not disappointed. 
A garlic and Dungeness crabmeat soup was superb, as was my wife's New Orleans-inspired crab Po' Boy sandwich and my pan-fried oysters with fennel slaw (below, left).
Fresh halibut starred in the kids' fish and chips.
For dessert, the kids were somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer decadence of the homemade Kit Kat ice cream - very chocolately, with large shards of the crumbled namesake candy bar worked in. Their parents had to reluctantly do relief duty.
After dinner we went to the homey and sprawling Canyon Way Bookstore, which we've enjoyed before.
It still has a great atmosphere, a nice cafe, gifts, and some pretty good, if slightly dated CDs for sale.
The book selection is generally intelligent and eclectic, and the staff warm and knowledgable. That's why I was disappointed to notice the current events section was heavily weighted to uber-liberal titles and Bush-bashing tomes, with nary a conservative selection visible, save a lone work by P.J. O'Rourke.
Hey, it happens - but it left a bad taste. It's rather indulgent for the staff to impose its politics on the consumer.
Next time we go to Newport, I'll be trying to find lodgings overlooking or right near Nye Beach, a real hidden gem. With a feel light years removed from busy Route 101 and the tourist-thronged historic bayfront, Nye Beach is both a city neighborhood and prime destination for the discerning tourist. Classy small shops, restaurants and lodgings are concentrated in a tastefully low-key but chic local business district amidst quaint single-family homes; all of it bordered on the west by a huge, clean and beautiful Pacific Ocean beach great for tidepooling, kite flying, walking or lazing about. Here are a few shots I took the morning we left Newport for Bandon.
From the cliff above......
......and on the beach.
Additional Newport attractions include the Mark Hatfield Marine Science Center, the Rogue Ales Brewery tours, and Yaquina Bay State Park and lighthouse.
Coming next, as we work our way south along the Oregon Coast: Yachats, Cape Perpetua and Heceta Head.
TECHNORATI TAGS: OREGON, OREGON COAST, TOURISM, VACATION, NEWPORT, LODGINGS, RESTAURANTS, STATE PARKS, LIGHTHOUSE, BEACHES, YAQUINA HEAD, YAQUINA BAY, AGATE BEACH, NYE BEACH, LOCAL OCEAN SEAFOODS, CANYON WAY BOOKSTORE, DRIFTWOOD VILLAGE, LINCOLN CITY, DAVID CASSIDY
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at July 25, 2006 06:00 PM