Life's a Beach

We enjoyed 5 days at Newport, Oregon for Dayle's birthday.  I hope you aren't tired of the same photos of the same places.  :-)  We had a lovely sunny day on Wednesday so we took advantage of the fair weather to drive to some of our favorite places.  At the top of our list is the Yaquina Head Lighthouse.  I think it's so beautiful.

This is a zoom of the lighthouse from outside our hotel room.

There are two turnouts as you drive down to the lighthouse, I always stop at both as you can only get a photo of it with the ocean behind it from the higher altitude.

When I was younger, there was still the lighthouse keepers cottage by it, I'm sad that they felt it necessary to raze it instead of restoring it.  

Then and now.

And I always zoom in on the top of the lighthouse, they fascinate me.

And the wondrous Fresnel lens that throws the light of an oil lantern miles and miles out to sea to warn sailors in the dark of night of the rocky shore.

And these are what the light would warn the sailors about.  :-|

Is there anything more mesmerizing than staring out at the mighty ocean?  Here you see the dark clouds approaching and beyond them the sun illuminates the sea like silver on the horizon.

This shows the rocky point and the sea roiling below.

On the North side of the parking area if you walk up to the railing, you can see an inlet and a black pebble beach.

If you look closely at the photo above, you will see this neat light cave/tunnel in the rock where you can see the light from the other side shining through.

And if you look at the photo above the one above, you will see a little dot in the distance.. and this is what the dot is!  :-)

We left the lighthouse and drove North, turning off Hwy 101 up the Siletz river to visit my "nurse log" and see how it's doing.  I was amazed at how the little volunteer trees have grown.  I also am pretty impressed with the garden design skills of Mother Earth!  

If you look close above, you will see the light shining through the water below the log.  I worry about this little floating garden.  I worry the log will rot and break apart and the little trees and bushes will float out to sea and die.  I asked Dayle could we get a log for the circle driveway and place it by the road, hack out the center and plant a similar garden.  :-)  He's not on board for this idea.  

We drove into a favorite little beach at Taft and got a zoom shot of the seals that find respite on this beach of Siletz Bay.

A quick snap of a Seagull keeping watch atop a sign on the beach.

Hello!

A shot of the rocky tors in the bay.

We then headed to Depoe Bay on our way South to our hotel.  The waves are breaking big that day.

The sun does wonders for turning the sea such wonderful blue, green and aqua colors.

I'm so glad we had such a nice day before the weather turned!

Can you imagine owning and living in one of these homes with the view of the ocean 24/7?

A pretty wave.

The weather turned to grey and cold and rainy on Dayle's birthday, but that did not stop us from celebrating.  We headed to another of our favorite restaurants for his birthday meal, Kyllo's in Lincoln City.  I ordered a small salad with some bay shrimp for the top.  It was outstanding.

We both ordered the grilled filet mignon, garlic mashed potatoes and green beans.  Delish!  We were seated at a wonderful table with a great view of the ocean waves and seagulls on the beach.

 The view during his birthday dinner.

Kyllo's sits right on the "D River" where Devil's Lake empties into the ocean.. it's known as the "World's Shortest River".  :-)

The gulls love it here for some reason.

Walking out to the car I spied these rose hips, they were huge, the size of a large radish, and so red and pretty.

We got one more snap of the 3 rocks in the bay which I just love.

Isn't this tree on the top with moss hanging from the branches just the most amazing thing?

Then back to the hotel for our last night.  

We packed up and headed home the next morning.  A good getaway for us.  Where do you go for 4 or 5 days when you get a chance?  Do share.  ((hugs)), Teresa :-)