Newport

After a good sleep, we collected our belongings to continue on our way again. As nice as this hotel is, one thing we found strange was how they asked us in the compendium to wash the dishes before leaving, even though we didn't have a kitchen sink! Well we did our best to tidy up but couldn't really figure out how we were expected to do that.

We decided to check out nearby Astoria before continuing down the coast, which was my idea as it's the town setting for the movie "The Goonies". Thanks to the internet, it was easy to find the film locations, and an in-car GPS makes it even easier. Whilst some locations like the Flavel House Museum and the Oregon Film Museum were easy to access, others such as Mikey's house were blocked off from the public. There was a sign at the end of the long driveway advising the police would be called if anyone tried to photograph the house. Therefore, we decided to move on!

I hadn't read anything about the Astoria Column, but Ted saw it from town and thought we should check it out. Truthfully, it was amazing. Not only was the view from the top worth the admission alone, but the amount of detail on the column was awesome. We also climbed the tower and walked around the small lookout at the top before I remembered I have acrophobia and headed back down.

After leaving Astoria, we headed back on the coast road south towards Newport, which included taking another picture of Haystack Rock from a different viewpoint. For some unknown reason, the GPS took us off the coast road to drive us through the middle of the countryside instead. Therefore we ended up seeing the underwhelming town of Garibaldi (right in the middle of cow country!) before stopping for lunch at a local Denny's.

On the way we stopped at the natural blowhole Devil's Punchbowl, before continuing onto Newport. Newport ended up being somewhat plain, as it seemed to be little more than a busy road going through an industrial area. After checking into our hotel, we walked down to nearby Nye Beach which was a bit better.

We stayed in Nye Beach for dinner at an Irish pub, as finding an inexpensive venue with a water view was an impossibility! One thing we have noticed about this town though is the abundance of blackberries growing everywhere. Since there didn't seem to be any memorable nightlife here, our evening was spent either watching TV (Ted), or doing laundry (me). Tomorrow we continue onto the town of Florence.Read more