Newport, Sea Lions, and the Yaquina Bay Bridge

Newport

Newport borders on the Pacific Ocean and Yaquina Bay. The historical Bayfront area is home to one of Oregon’s largest commercial fishing fleets. It is also a vibrant cultural district, with shops, art galleries, chowder houses, and restaurants right next to fish processing plants and historic buildings. Newport has two lighthouses – the original lighthouse on Yaquina Bay and the second built in the late 1800s on Yaquina Head. You will also find the Oregon Coast Aquarium, a well-known tourist attraction. The Yaquina Bay Bridge is another important landmark and is the most recognizable bridge on the Oregon Coast. It was opened to the public in 1936.

We stayed in the Hallmark Resort Hotel. It was a lovely hotel and we waited for our room in a very nice area that looked out over the beach.  There was coffee, tea and cider for the guests any time of day.  We didn’t have a very long wait and got into the room within the hour.  It was getting close to dinner so we tried Georgie’s Restaurant next store, but they were all booked up and you needed a reservation.  We finally decided to go to Newport’s Bayfront area and found a sushi restaurant.  Shawn ordered sushi rolls and I had udon soup. I had also  ordered a sangria  (I thought just a plain one) but it tasted strange and it was a much bigger size than I asked for.  I guess there was a communication problem.  The sangria had saki in it which totally changed the taste, so I sent it back. In the end we were charged for it, plus even more, for the wrong size.  The busboy, who took the bill and my credit card , was nice enough to take sangria off the bill.  It was getting late so we didn’t have a chance to walk around and thought to return the next day to check out the sea lions.

Sea lions on the Dock

We got up early and returned to the Bayfront to see the sea lions.  We could hear them in the distance making all kinds of noise.  The sea lions were very close to the dock and there were quite a few of them.  Most of them were sleeping, but whenever a sea lion tried to get on the docks, the others would get angry and not allow him to get aboard and they would all commence making a lot of noise.  It was hysterical to watch!

Yaquina Bay Bridge

After watching the sea lions for quite a while, we went to take photos of the bridge. There was a path leading down to a very rocky beach, so we walked along trying to get the best views of the bridge.