Travis and I celebrated our 15th anniversary in December 2022, which is pretty crazy. Doesn’t feel like it’s been that long in some ways! We had discussed taking a trip to celebrate, but we didn’t want to try to cram it in during Christmas break (our anniversary is the 22nd). We had also intended to take a trip for our 10th anniversary, and the timing didn’t work out because Abigail was only a few months old at that time, and we had just moved into our new house.
Fast forward to January 2023, and we decided to book something for the summer when it would be easier to leave town for a few days. Our kids are old enough now where I don’t feel as guilty to leave them because they sleep well at night and are more self-sufficient. We first looked into going to Maine, which is somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit, but we quickly realized it wouldn’t be in our budget to stay on the coast, and I really had my heart set on a place with an ocean view ;) So we pivoted to the West Coast instead…haha. I had also been wanting to visit the Oregon Coast for a good while after reading and hearing about how beautiful it was. After doing some research about different cities and places to stay on the coast, we ultimately decided to go for a few days during the week of July 4th (7/3 through 7/8). Brooklyn was going to F.C. Camp that week, which meant that Paw and Rae Rae would only have Savannah and Abigail for most of the week. It all worked out great!
The Oregon Coast is divided into 3 main regions (North, Central, and South), and we decided to make Depoe Bay, in the Central region, our home base for the week. There is so much to see that we knew we wouldn’t be able to see it all, but I wanted to cram in as much as possible. Who knows when we’ll have another opportunity to go back! If you know much about the Pacific Northwest (PNW), you know it’s very cloudy and rainy out there for much of the year. However, their dry season is usually from July to early October, and July and August are two of the most popular months to visit. We were crossing our fingers for good weather, but excited no matter what. Here is a (lengthy) recap of our trip:
July 3rd: Travis and I woke up Monday morning and found out our first flight (HSV to DEN) had been delayed by about 30 minutes. We took our time getting ready and got to the airport around 7:30 am. It was an adventure trying to fit all of our stuff in one suitcase to avoid paying for 2 checked bags. I had no idea it cost $30 each way for each bag…definitely a rip off! We managed to fit everything in one large suitcase and got to the airport, and it was 3 lbs over the 50 lb limit…haha. So we had to offload a few things into our backpacks to make it work, but we did.
This was my first time flying since January 2010, so it had been a while! I wasn’t too nervous beforehand, probably because I had forgotten what it’s like. I can’t remember if I liked flying before, but I discovered on this trip that I don’t really like flying now…haha. On the first flight from HSV to DEN, I got really dizzy on takeoff. I felt better after a minute, but the turbulence and bumps really made me nervous. It probably didn’t help that we were on a fairly small plane. We made it to Denver without issue, and we got bumped to a later flight to Portland. (We would have missed our original flight from DEN to POR since our first flight was delayed.) Anyway, our second flight didn’t leave for a couple of hours, so we had time to eat lunch at Panda Express before going to the gate. The second flight was much smoother, and I didn’t get dizzy so that was good. They gave us seats in Economy Plus, so we had more leg room than we did on the first flight. It was nice! We had some really amazing views out the window.
After we landed, we got our suitcase and picked up our rental car, a blue Honda HRV with a California tag, and we hit the road. We thought it was funny that all the rental cars in Oregon had California tags. We stopped at a restaurant near the airport called Fuller’s Burger Shack for dinner. They served Oregon natural 21-day aged beef patties, and those burgers were delicious!! The sauce was fantastic, and Travis got some really good tater tots with his burger. We figured it was probably a chain, but after looking it up, I think this is the only location. The restaurant was first started in 1947 – pretty cool! We felt better after eating, and we were able to FaceTime with Rae Rae and the girls while we ate. The weather in Portland was gorgeous, and we could immediately feel the difference in humidity vs. back home in Alabama. I had read and heard about how unsafe Portland is, but we didn’t feel unsafe at the airport or the restaurant. (I’m sure there are worse areas, but thankfully we didn’t go through them). We did, however, notice a lot of interesting looking people as we were eating our burgers. Definitely a very different vibe than home.
Portland is really close to the Columbia River Gorge (we could see the gorge as we flew over!), so we wanted to hit a few places there before heading to the coast. First we drove to the Portland Women’s Forum State Scenic Viewpoint. There were only one or two other cars there when we arrived. It was pretty, but had a lot of brush/grass growing up that kind of blocked the view from the parking area…
So we kept going down a windy road to the Vista House at Crown Point. The building was closed for the day, but it was neat to see it from the outside because of its unique architectural style. The view from the Vista House was amazing! Pictures really don’t do it justice. It was definitely worth the detour after the leaving the airport.
It was pretty crowded with tourists and people just taking in the view, but at least that meant there were plenty of people we could ask to take our picture ;)
Last on the agenda, we drove a few more minutes down the interstate to Multnomah Falls. We had heard from several people that it would be worth seeing, and it was really cool! You can actually see it from the interstate, and it’s super easy to get to. It was very crowded, even at about 7pm when we got there. People everywhere – I’m sure it would be even busier during the middle of the day. Apparently it is normally so busy from 9am-6pm in the summer that you have to have a parking pass just to park in the parking lot.
Multnomah Falls is apparently the most visited natural recreation site in the PNW, and it is the tallest waterfall in Oregon at 620 ft. It was really pretty! We walked up to it from the bottom and then took the trail to the bridge that crosses over it.
It was really neat to see it in person!
We didn’t stay too long at any of the stops because we knew we still had a decent drive to get to our rental on the coast in Depoe Bay. It was almost a 3 hour drive, but so beautiful along the way. We saw so many vineyards and unique trees on our drive. We made a late night stop at a grocery store in Lincoln City for a few items and finally made it to our rental at about 10:30 pm (Pacific Time – so it felt like 12:30 am to our bodies!!). It was a really long but great first day.
It was foggy when we got to Depoe Bay, so we couldn’t see the water at all, but our first impression of our rental was that it was so cute and perfect for what we needed (a studio apartment located right across the street from the ocean with a full kitchen and king size bed).
July 4th: It was still very foggy when we woke up, and it was hard to even see the water right across the street from our rental. We ate breakfast and got ready and decided to try to head south on Highway 101 to see what we could along the way.
Our first stop was Seal Rock State Recreation Site, which was about 35 minutes south of our rental. It was a little foggy when we got there, but it cleared up for the most part while we were there. Seal Rock blew us away…it was one of those places you just have to see in person to fully appreciate.
We happened to luck out with the timing of the week we chose because the low tides that week were super low (they call them “negative tides”), which allows for tidepooling and really getting to see some cool stuff. We didn’t realize it until later how lucky we got. We spent a little over an hour at Seal Rock and when we left, the water was starting to come back in, and places that we’d explored were already under water.
The rock formations were just incredible to see in person!
In the tide pools, we saw 5 out of the 6 creatures on the display (sea stars, mussels, green sea anemones, turban shells, and gooseneck barnacles). I’m not sure I’d ever seen sea stars or any of this stuff out in the wild…it was really, really cool. Almost everything in the tidepools was alive…the signs cautioned you to step only on bare sand to avoid crushing the living creatures.
A guy exploring near us even found this tiny sea star!
There were also plenty of birds…
and even a bunch of Harbor Seals! We got to see them laying on rocks and some were even swimming, including a seal pup. We had never seen seals in the wild either….totally amazing!
Even just watching the waves crash against the rocks and seeing the fog roll across the sand was incredible. It was so different than anywhere we’d ever been before.
Neither one of us wanted to leave when we did. It felt like something out of a dream! But we knew there was so much else to see, so we finally pulled ourselves away and back to the car…
We continued driving about 10 minutes further south and stopped at Beachside State Recreation Site, which was a public beach access and campground area. We were trying to find something called Big Stump, the northernmost redwood stump that’s known about. It is 200 miles north of the northernmost coastal redwoods alive today, and it is a big stump sticking up right in the middle of the beach. So odd and cool! We had a tough time looking for it because it was so foggy at that particular beach. We found a stump, but after comparing it to a picture online, I don’t think we found the right one. We got our exercise though! ;)
After that, we kept going south for a few more minutes until we got to Yachats (pronounced Yah-hots). The town was bustling because they were having a 4th of July parade or celebration, so there were people and cars parked everywhere. We found a spot to park and headed to Ona for lunch. In one of the travel guides I read, it said Ona recently was voted as having the best crab cakes in Oregon. Sign me up! Sure enough, I think it was the best crab cake I’ve ever eaten, and I’ve had some good ones before. I also got a summer salad with melons, greens, feta, and prosciutto. It was also delicious! Travis got the crab cake platter and loved them too. We also had a view of the water while we ate. We had worked up an appetite, and it was the perfect lunch spot!
We backtracked less than a mile after lunch to hike the Ya’Xaik Trail, which was recommended to us by my friend Jessica’s dad. Jessica’s brother has lived in Oregon for several years, so they’ve been out here several times to visit. The Ya’Xaik were a Native American tribe local to the area, and we read several signs that told of their history and how the settlers forced them to relocate after they arrived. This trail was dedicated in their honor. It has a very woodsy, rainforest feel to it, and it felt great to hike in the shade where it was nice and cool. At the end of the trail, we were able to walk through a privately owned botanical garden and see some really neat plants that were labeled for identification. We enjoyed the short walk (I think it was slightly under 1 mile), and we only saw two other people on it the whole time!
We drove a few miles further south and visited Cape Perpetua after that, the highest viewpoint accessible by car on the Oregon Coast at 800 feet above sea level. It was HIGH. The view was amazing!! Travis and I are both scared of heights though, so being up that high was a little nerve wracking.
We were shocked that the wall on the side of the walkway wasn’t higher than it is. I was afraid to get too close to the edge…haha. There are miles of trails there, but we didn’t do any hiking.
After taking in the view, we drove back down the mountain to the visitor center instead to purchase a 5 day Oregon Pacific Coast passport for $10 that allows you to park at a bunch of different state/federal owned property instead of paying individually at each place. It was a good deal based on our sightseeing list! Even the visitors center had a beautiful view even though it wasn’t nearly as high up!
We continued south on our drive after that to see the Heceta Head lighthouse. There are 11 lighthouses on the Oregon Coast, and I was hoping to see several of them on our trip.
Heceta Head is supposed to be the most photographed lighthouse on the coast. You have to walk up a trail to get to it from the parking area. On the way, you pass the lightkeeper’s house, which has been turned into a bed and breakfast. I thought that was really cool! It was beautiful. The lighthouse itself could use a good pressure washing, but it was still really neat to see it in person! I was hopeful that we could tour the inside, but we are thinking it may have been closed for tours that day since it was a federal holiday.
There was also a really nice view from the lighthouse/lightkeeper’s home of the ocean and nearby cliff. We debated about trying to do one more trail that evening called Sweet Creek Falls trail, but it was already about 4:30 by this point, and we were pretty tired already. It would have taken about an hour to drive there. It was supposed to be incredibly beautiful with cascading waterfalls all along the path, but we decided we’d have to try to do that a different day if we could. Instead, we headed back north and stopped in Newport for supper at a restaurant called Georgie’s. It was right on the water, so it had a scenic view. I didn’t take any pictures, but Travis got seafood alfredo and I ordered shrimp piccata with mashed potatoes and steamed veggies. It hit the spot after a long day of exploring!
We decided to go home after that for a while. Being 4th of July, we had originally planned to see fireworks that evening in either Newport or Lincoln City (both about 20 minutes from our rental). Long story short, we thought one of them had been postponed to the 5th because of an error on social media (Apparently the fireworks in Newport, RHODE ISLAND were postponed that night, and a local news station in Oregon shared it and confused everyone!), and the other show in Lincoln City wasn’t going to start until 10 pm. We were so tired that we decided to skip the fireworks and watch the sunset from our rental instead. It was beautiful! (It also turned out to be the only sunset we could see all week due to clouds/fog, so I’m really glad we stuck around to watch it). The sun doesn’t set on the Oregon coast until after 9 pm and it doesn’t get completely dark until after 9:30. So crazy! We decided it was probably the best and most beautiful 4th of July we’ve ever had, despite not seeing any fireworks!
July 5: July is a very popular month to visit the Oregon Coast, so we booked a 1.5 hr whale watching charter boat tour a week or two prior to our trip. I was afraid they might all book up if we waited, and whale watching was one of the top things on our priority list. Well, we woke up this morning and it was super foggy again—so much so that we could barely see the ocean across the street. It didn’t seem like great weather for whale watching, but we went ahead and headed to the harbor at 9:30 to check in for our 10 am tour. We had booked with Whale’s Tail, one of many companies that offer whale watching in Depoe Bay. We headed straight down the very steep ramp (it was low tide) to the dock and met the boat captain there. It was a very small boat that looked more like an inflatable raft with a motor. There were two other girls that were scheduled to go on our tour. The captain let us know that the conditions weren’t great for whale watching, but that we could still go out and try to spot some if we wanted to. I wasn’t sure what to do and deferred to Travis, who said we should just go for it. The other girls said they still wanted to go too, so we set out pretty quickly after getting on board and getting life jackets on.
The captain put Travis and I on a little bench seat at the front of the boat, right in front of his seat, and the other girls were in the back. It was a very cozy boat that probably only held 6 people max ;) We saw some seals on a rock as we left the harbor, which was neat. As we crossed under the bridge leaving the harbor, we could see how big the waves were and they were coming right toward us. I just knew we were about to get soaked. Travis and I were looking up at these huge waves about to crash right on us! Somehow we managed to get through it hardly wet at all with only a little water coming on board…I was amazed. The captain definitely knew what he was doing. It was so foggy that we could barely see anything on the ocean, which was an eery feeling. The water was super choppy the whole time and pretty chilly. At one point, I had to put on my winter gloves and ear warmers. It was so foggy that we could barely see the land behind us after we got out there.
The captain took us out and around a corner where it was a little clearer, but we never saw anything other than a bunch of pigeon guillemots. It was a rough ride, and a couple of times our rear ends left the seat we were bouncing so much…haha. We didn’t have anything to hold onto either. I was so nervous that I was laughing uncontrollably. Whew! After 1.5 hours, we finally made it back to the calm water in the harbor. We didn’t see a whale, but we sure had an experience to tell about!
We briefly went home before walking down to the whale watching center right near the harbor. A park ranger was giving a talk at 12:30 pm about whales and how to spot them. It was very informative and interesting! He had models (to scale) of different kinds of whales and explained their features and habits. We learned a lot! We also walked inside the center to look around. They have a big whiteboard that they update with the date and when different types of animals were last spotted (gray whales, orcas, humpbacks, seals, etc.). Depoe Bay is known as the whale watching capital of the Oregon coast. You can see whales from the whale watching center or along the sea wall…when the weather is good ;)
It was interesting to look at the harbor from up above and see another boat just like the one we’d been on an hour earlier. I’m guessing those people didn’t see any whales either, but maybe they got luckier than we did.
After that, we walked over to Burger 101 and picked up some lunch to take back to our rental. The menu was very simple, and the burgers were delicious! Depoe Bay is a very small town with only about 1,500 residents, but it has a lot of character, and it’s neat to be able to walk along the seawall and walk to restaurants and shops across the street.
Our plan for the afternoon was to stop at several scenic viewpoints in and around Depoe Bay. We started with the Rocky Creek Scenic Viewpoint (where we Facetimed the girls and Paw/Rae Rae) before continuing to the Otter Crest Loop, a scenic drive with spots to get out and look out over the ocean. The sky had cleared up somewhat by this point, and we could even see a little sun peeking through. The views were amazing, and everything was so lush. We even saw tons of daisies just growing along the trails.
The views from Cape Foulweather were especially incredible!!
The last stop on the Otter Crest Loop was at Devil’s Punch Bowl. It fills up during high tide and during storms and apparently looks like a witches’ brew when the water sloshes around. At low tide, you can actually go down inside it and explore. We weren’t there at low tide or high tide, but it was still really cool to see it from above. The rocks around here are just breathtaking!
We were only a few miles from Agate Beach at this point, so we decided to head over there to see if we could find any agates. I’d never heard of agates (pronounced a·guhts) before, but they are basically a translucent form of quartz that can be found along the Oregon coast (and other places). I didn’t do enough research ahead of time and thought the best place to find them would be Agate Beach, but after reading about them later, I think they are more commonly found in gravel areas where you can sift through lots of rocks to find them. The beach was very unique with dunes everywhere. It was tough to walk on! We explored for a while but never found any agates. We did see some interesting rocks, and I think we may have seen fragments of colorful shells. It was pretty foggy there also!
After we finished up at the beach, we headed a few miles further south to Yaquina Bay lighthouse to see our second lighthouse of the week! It was only in service for 3 years (1871-1874) and is Oregon’s last remaining wooden lighthouse still standing. We weren’t able to tour the inside (we were a little late in the day, but I’m not sure they are even currently offering tours), but it was still neat to see it from the outside.
We stuck around Newport and ate dinner at Ocean Bleu at Gino’s near Yaquina Bay. Supper was delicious, and we finished it off with some marionberry/blackberry cobbler and vanilla ice cream. Marionberries grow primarily in Oregon, and I’d never heard of them before this trip!
On the way back to our rental, we passed a sign for U.S Route 20 that said it was 3365 miles to Boston. It seemed like such an odd sign, but I looked it up, and apparently Route 20 is the longest highway in the U.S. Pretty cool that we were at one end of it in Newport! We stopped at a gas station on the way back, and Travis about jumped out of his skin when he got out of the car to pump the gas. Apparently, in most counties in Oregon, you aren’t allowed to pump your own gas, so he was totally caught off guard by the attendant who popped up out of nowhere…haha. It was a funny ending to another great day!
July 6: On Thursday morning, it was foggy and misty again when we woke up. So far we had only explored Depoe Bay and areas south of it, so today we decided to head north up the coast. Our first stop was in Lincoln City at Road’s End State Recreation Site. I think it is the northernmost beach in Lincoln City. We timed it to get there at low tide because we had heard that you could access a hidden beach around the corner from Wizard Rock only at low tide. There were also apparently more tide pools to explore. We parked in the main parking area and walked down to the beach and quickly found out we had a long way to walk to get to the end of the beach where the tide pools were. We realized later that there was a super small public parking area that would have been a shorter walk, but I’m not sure there were any open spots anyway. We got our exercise at least!
We walked and walked and finally got to Wizard Rock at the end of the beach…
…and we discovered the most AMAZING tidepools ever. It was even easier to get to these tidepools than the ones at Seal Rock…you could just walk on the bare sand in between them. We lost count of how many sea stars and green sea anemones we saw…and probably thousands of mussels. We even saw a red octopus’s tentacle. He went into a crevice before we could see the rest of him, and he never came back out. Still really cool though! We realized that to get to the hidden beach, we would have to climb over some big rocks to get there. There were others doing it, but I chickened out because it didn’t seem like we had the right shoes on. Travis says I’m risk averse, and he’s right. He wanted to go, but I convinced him that we needed to make sure we got home to our kiddos in one piece ;) A lady told us the hidden beach was really cool though! Maybe if we go back again, we can make sure we have the proper footwear. Just the tidepools themselves made it worth the long walk!! I can’t even describe how cool they were. The beach also had tons of black cobble stones scattered around on the sand, so I chose 3 of them to bring home to the girls. This beach was one of the highlights of our trip, for sure!
By the time we left, it was already lunch time, so we decided to stop at a restaurant called the Wildflower Grill in Lincoln City before driving further north. There were beautiful flowers growing all around the restaurant. We missed their brunch by a few minutes and had to wait for a table, but our food was delicious! I had a turkey po boy with cranberry sauce and Travis had a crab salad. All of the ingredients they used were fresh and local, even the bread on my sandwich. Everything was wonderful and definitely worth the wait!
After we left the restaurant, we continued north and drove the Three Capes Scenic Route. It hugs the coast a little closer than Hwy 101 on that stretch. It winds through the mountains and beautiful forests as well. We made several scenic stops along the way. One of our first stops was at Cape Kiwanda. I didn’t realize that the beach there had a huge rock formation similar to the famous Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, which we weren’t going to have time to go see. We could see it from way far off in the distance as we got closer. I later learned that the one in Cape Kiwanda is also called Haystack Rock, and it is actually about 340 feet tall (about 100 feet taller than the one in Cannon Beach). However, this one is about a mile offshore, so you can’t walk up to it at low tide like you can at the one at Cannon Beach. It was amazing to see this one in person though!
We made several other stops at pulloffs along the route to enjoy the views. We also stopped at Cape Lookout (the middle cape of the three), but the only way to get to the point where you can see the ocean was by hiking about 2 miles, and we decided we didn’t have enough time to do that.
Our final stop along the route was at Cape Meares. It was a little hard to get to since one of the roads leading to it was closed, but we finally got there. Cape Meares is home to another lighthouse as well as a super cool tree called the Octopus Tree. The Cape Meares lighthouse is no longer in use and is only 38 feet tall. Pretty short compared to the Heceta Head lighthouse. The reason for its short height is because it sits so high on a cliff that it didn’t need to be very tall to be seen by ships in the ocean.
We were also able to get a quick tour of the inside. It was cramped quarters in there, so it was hard to get very good pictures. We had to climb a spiral staircase, but we were able to see the lens inside and hear some of its history from our tour guide. I enjoyed that!
There was also a nice view of the ocean from the area around the lighthouse!
Next, we walked down a short trail to the Octopus Tree, a Sitka spruce that measures more than 46 feet around but has no central trunk. It does look kind of like an octopus! It’s estimated to be about 250-300 years old and is 105 feet tall. I was really glad we got to see it! The other trees in the area were really neat too.
Next, we drove a few miles further inland to go to the Tillamook Creamery. It was interesting how we left the fog behind on the coast, and it was clear skies and sunny at the creamery! I later learned that they call the fog “the marine layer,” and it usually happens when warm inland air mixes with the jet stream of cooler air coming from Alaska down the coast. This fog can happen a lot in the summer months when it is so much warmer inland than it is on the coast.
It was super crowded when we got to the Tillamook Creamery, even though it was toward the end of the day by this point. Someone had told us it was always crowded though, so we were prepared. It was neat to read about the process of how they make their cheese and get to walk past the windows and look into the factory. All of the machines were labeled, and their displays made it easy to understand exactly how it all worked. We both thought it was really interesting. We got to see the workers moving big 40 lb blocks of cheese down the conveyer belt before they were shrink wrapped and sent into cold storage.
I had planned for us to get ice cream while we were there, but the lines for ice cream were insanely long. So we ended up buying a big container of ice cream from the freezer in the gift shop, and eating it outside at a table with 2 spoons…haha. We paid a little over $6 for the big container and it would have been $10 for two cones. I think we came out good, and we didn’t have to wait in the super long line. We didn’t eat the entire container, but we made a good dent in it before we were full.
We then headed to one of our final stops for the night: Munson Creek Falls. It was right down the road from the Creamery, so we decided to stop and see it really quick. It was only a 0.25 mile walk to get to it. There was one other person that we passed on the trail as he was leaving, but other than that, we had the trail to ourselves! Munson Creek Falls is the highest waterfall in the Oregon coastal region, and it was cool to see it in person. We couldn’t get very close to the bottom of it because there were trees blocking the trail, but we could see most of it from a distance.
We also made a quick stop at Boiler Bay to walk around and see the view from there since we were coming right past it on our way home. It was foggy, but the view was still beautiful. For a late dinner, I ate some leftovers from my dinner at Georgie’s, and Travis got takeout from Bay View Thai restaurant in Depoe Bay. We were tired by the end of the day, but it was worth it to see all that we did!
July 7: This morning we woke up, and it was cloudy but NOT foggy outside! We could actually see the ocean from our room. I forgot to mention that we booked another whale watching trip for this afternoon after we didn’t see any whales on our first trip, so I was hoping it was a good sign that we didn’t wake up to fog that morning.
Our first stop today was at Yaquina Head. We planned to get there this morning around low tide because it was supposed to be another good spot to explore tide pools. I also wanted to see the lighthouse, our 4th of the week. The tide pools were at Cobble Beach near the lighthouse. We had to walk down a bunch of stairs and across a big area of cobble stones to get to them. It was definitely a difficult walk in my sandals. Travis put his trail shoes on today for the first time, and they helped a lot.
We got to see a bunch of mussels and some green sea anemone. We also saw some pink and purple algae (I think?) that we hadn’t seen at either of the previous tide pools. We only saw a couple of sea stars though. This was definitely the most difficult tide pool area to navigate because of the uneven footing with the least amount of sea creatures to show for it. We did get to see a bunch of Harbor seals though and tons of birds, so that was really neat.
My favorite part of the morning was walking around the lighthouse though and walking through the museum at the Interpretive Center. It explained some history of the area and the lighthouse, and we saw large fossils of gray whale ribs and a jaw bone. This lighthouse was both of our favorites…it was beautiful! I was glad we were able to see it. I bought a small painting of the lighthouse that was done by a local artist, and we also found some really neat books for the kids that I thought about ordering later. They had a lighthouse picture book that I especially loved.
After leaving Yaquina Head, we drove over to Nye Beach and ate at a restaurant called Pacific Kitchen. Nye Beach was a super cute area with tons of shops and restaurants. Our lunch was delicious! I had a salad with chicken, fresh vegetables, mango, and marionberry sauce. I’m a big fan of marionberries now :) It was so good. Travis got some mac and cheese with crab in it. His was fantastic too. We haven’t had a bad meal since we’ve gotten to Oregon…they really know how to cook here.
After lunch, we hurried back to Depoe Bay for our second attempt at whale watching. We made a quick stop at the whale watching center to check their whiteboard, and it said they’d seen 3 whales already that day, so we felt hopeful! This time, we booked with Dockside Charters, and their boat was much bigger than the one we rode in on Wednesday. We checked in at 1:30 pm and boarded a boat called the Samson for our 2 pm whale watching trip. We found seats at the front of the boat, which seemed perfect because we could see what the captain was seeing.
Right away as we left the harbor, we could tell this was going to be a totally different experience. The waves were SO much calmer today and all of the boats were just hanging out a few hundred yards off shore of Depoe Bay. Our boat headed over there too, and it didn’t take too long before we saw our first whale spout! I’m not sure how many different whales we saw over the course of the hour, but we probably saw at least 5 spouts and several times we saw their backs and/or tails come out of the water. It was super cool! We got a few pictures and one good video, which made me so happy. It still would have been a fantastic trip even if we hadn’t gotten to see a whale, but this was the icing on the cake.
This afternoon we really figured out why Depoe Bay is called “the whale watching capital of the Oregon Coast.” After we got off the boat, we walked back to the whale watching center for a few more minutes and stood on the deck and saw several more whale spouts! We hurried back home so that I could run in one of the gift shops before they closed at 4 and buy some souvenirs for the girls, and Travis just sat on our deck with a glass of Coke and watched for whales. He saw them spout over and over and even saw some tails a couple of times. I saw some spouts too after I got back. It was super cool to be able to see that from our own deck. Not sure we’ll ever be able to do that again!! We really lucked out with clear weather on our last day in town.
For dinner, we walked down to The Horn and picked up a meat lovers pizza and took it back to our rental and ate it on the deck. We hoped to see a few more whales, but I think they had moved on by the time we were eating dinner. The pizza was really good though! It was a beautiful evening.
After dinner, we walked across the street to get a quick picture of the whale statue before walking down the street a little ways to Arch Rock to a scenic spot that Travis had found when he was running a couple of days earlier. It would have been a great spot to watch the sun set, but it was a little too cloudy that evening. It was still a beautiful view with the ocean as far as we could see in either direction. Travis scared me by wanting to go out on one of the big rocks that hangs over the water. He wasn’t actually at the edge, but it looked like it from where I was standing. (He’s scared of heights like I am, so he wouldn’t have done it if it were dangerous). It made for a cool photo, but I was glad when he got back to where I was standing ;) After soaking in the views for a while, we walked back to our rental and got our stuff mostly packed up before it was time for bed.
July 8: We didn’t have too much to pack up this morning when we got up, so we didn’t feel too rushed getting ready to leave. I sat out on the balcony one last time wishing we didn’t have to leave such a beautiful place!
We left around 8:20 am and got to the airport by about 10:45 am. We filled up the rental car with gas when we got close to the airport, and this time Travis was prepared for someone to pump it for him…haha. We also had time to FaceTime with the girls on the way there. Although we weren’t ready to leave Oregon, we were still ready to get home to see the girls!
We got through security and made it to our gate without too much trouble, although they did flag my backpack and have to go through my bag of souvenirs for the girls and inspect the glass bottles with shells and sand in them ;) We sat at the gate and ate leftover cold pizza for lunch. It didn’t take too long for them to come over the intercom to let everyone know that all air traffic was paused over Denver (where we were headed) because it was too busy, so our flight was going to be delayed by a couple of hours. We didn’t have a good feeling about being able to make our second flight if that happened unless it got delayed too, so we made a last minute switch to a flight to Houston using the United app. We literally made the change, walked a few gates down, went to the desk to get our boarding passes printed, and walked right on to the plane. They were already boarding when we arrived. It worked out really nice! We made to Houston with no issues (we even got upgraded to the Economy Plus seats again with an empty seat between us, so we had plenty of space).
Once in the Houston airport, we had enough time to grab Chick-fil-a (and sweet tea for Travis!) and quickly eat it at our gate before they called us to board again. This time, we didn’t get to sit together because we basically got whatever seats were left. This plane was super small. There were two seats on one side of the aisle and only one on the other side! Travis was seated alone up near the very front of the plane and I was several rows back on the other side. I was nervous about being in such a small plane, especially not sitting next to Travis, but the flight was pretty smooth. The only eventful part was a girl sitting diagonal in front of me who was very non-compliant with the flight attendant’s directions. It seemed like she was on some kind of medication or something was wrong with her. Several times, the girl tried to get up as we were descending to use the bathroom, and the flight attendant had to yell at her to sit down. It was pretty crazy, but thankfully it didn’t mess up our landing. I do wonder what happened to the girl after we landed. She didn’t even have her shoes on when the rest of us were getting off the plane.
The other eventful part of the day is that our checked suitcase didn’t make it home that night. We weren’t too surprised that it didn’t get on our last-minute flight to Houston, but we thought it might have made it on the flight from Denver to Huntsville that we were originally supposed to have been on. It landed only about 30 minutes after we did, but our bag wasn’t on it. Turns out our suitcase made it to Denver, but didn’t make it to the next flight to Huntsville. We also learned that there is only one direct flight from Denver to Huntsville per day, and it’s always in the evening. So our bag came in on Sunday night and the courier delivered it to our front door on Monday morning. It wasn’t the end of the world other than not having any clean underwear and having to borrow a hair dryer last minute from a friend in the neighborhood so we didn’t have to go to church the next morning with wet hair ;)
We met Paw and Rae Rae and the girls for lunch at Moe’s BBQ in Priceville on Sunday after church, and they were really excited to see us. We were excited to see them too and hear more about their week. I’ll cover that in a separate post about the rest of our family’s July :) We were so appreciative of Paw and Rae Rae being willing to take care of the girls and pick up Brooklyn from camp. They had a great time!
On the flight home, I was literally already researching for our next trip to Oregon ;) We would love to go back! There is so much to see that we barely scratched the surface. It was a really incredible trip, and we are so thankful that we had the chance to go!
One reply on “Oregon Coast – July 2023”
Wow, what a trip!!! Beautiful pictures.