Fathers Day, Lighthouses, Seals, Birds, Beverley Beach State Park, Newport & Tsunamis

June 19th, 2016 

Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there, but especially our son Ryan who is out at sea somewhere and missing out on his first one.  However, Trystan gave him a lovely grin and wore a great outfit.
                                                        
Of course, we remembered our dads in heaven as well. Everyone in these pictures are fathers.

June 20th, 2016

We drove to Newport, Oregon to see two lighthouses.

The first was Yaquina Bay Lighthouse.  The lighthouse has four floors, a basement, a living area, bedrooms and the light.  It is the only existing Oregon lighthouse with the living quarters attached and is believed to be the oldest building in Newport.  It was restored to an active light in 1996.

CoastGuard Tower

Beautiful Stove

View from the lighthouse grounds

Yaquina Bay Bridge

We then drove to the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area to see the Yaquina Head Lighthouse

When we got to the visitor centre we noticed photographers set up and watching the cliffs above.  We discovered there were some baby peregrine falcons that were about to fly for the first time.  How awesome is that.  We watched them fluttering their wings for quite a while and their mother was flying around encouraging them but unfortunately they didn't fly while we were there.

Here's a VIDEO of the baby birds.

After watching the baby birds we went to the lighthouse.  It was closed today so we couldn't go in.
                                                

                                             

We walked around outside the lighthouse.  There were lots of wildflowers.

The views, as usual, were awesome.

There were colonies of birds.  The rocks were covered.

                           

Most of these were Common Murre's.  I took a VIDEO to show them on the rocks and flying.  There were a few other birds as well.

We walked to another cove and saw a seal on a rock with the water all around him.

and another one on the rocks below us.

There were quite a few seals swimming below us and then one decided to climb up on the rock.  It took him forever and I took a VIDEO showing his attempt.  This made us laugh as he kept trying and kept ending up back in the ocean.  He was definitely persistent.

Trying to climb on the rock

I'm going to try again

He finally made it.

There was a path down to the beach and some people went down there.

                            

Seagull in the rocks

Seals on the rocks

We spent a long time watching the seals and birds and thoroughly enjoyed it.  There were more seals here than we had seen anywhere else along the coast so far.

On the way out of the park we drove by the visitor centre, the cameramen had all left bar one, and the baby falcons were still on the ledge.  

We stopped for dinner at Szabos Steak and Seafood Restaurant.  Bryan had a steak and I had crab cakes. The food, service and price was excellent.  We would definitely return here if in the area.  I also took a homemade Bread Pudding home with me, it was very yummy.  This was our Fathers Day/Sue's Birthday Dinner treat.

June 21st, 2016

As we were relaxing around the house today and getting ready for our move tomorrow, there was a knock on our door and two ladies stood there with a "baby" Alf.  They had seen my "Alf" sitting on our dashboard and just had to come and say Hi.  It was so funny and when they heard our story of how Bryan had bought him for me nearly 30 years ago when he first met me they couldn't wait to go home and tell everyone the story.  Ha!! Ha!! Made my day, people are so friendly and you never know from one day to the next what will happen.

June 22nd, 2016 

Time to move our home again today.  We left Seal Rock Cove and headed to Beverley Beach State Park.  It was only a few miles and as we couldn't get into the State Park until about 4pm we parked in a lay by, had lunch and watched the surf.  What an awesome view and so relaxing.  Lily thoroughly enjoyed her parking spot.

Trystan is standing up all by himself.  He's growing up too fast!!!

June 23rd, 2016

The weather has changed and it rained last night and is very overcast with more rain forecast.  As we are only here for two days we were glad that we did the two lighthouses before we got here.  We decided we would take a drive down to the harbor area in Newport.

Painting on the side of the aquarium

This boat is named after me!!!

This is a small piece of the Misawa Dock, that washed ashore here in June 2012, after the Tsunami in March 2011 in Japan.  Scientists examining the dock wreckage discovered many species of marine life attached to the dock that had come not only from Misawa but other parts of Japan and the ocean.  Read the prior link to learn how the scientists handled the wreckage.

We found another ceramic sea lion.   

Newport Bayfront Dancing Sea Lion "Heceta Takes Flight"

We drove along the river and discovered we were heading in the wrong direction with no other road for a long while that would get us back in the right direction, so eventually we just turned around.  We did see some great scenery though.

We got back to Newport and then headed home.

The campground is huge and there are several loops, the sites are quite small and there are a lot of trees.  It was very dark and dismal with the rain and trees not allowing much light to come through.  Still can't complain too much as we have been very lucky so far with the weather.

Tomorrow we leave for our next stop.

Take Care.