Farmers Market - Newport, Oregon

Locally sourced ingredients are featured in many of our home cooked meals when on the road. We were lucky enough to experience the Newport Farmers Market outdoors on a sunny day just before their scheduled move indoors for the winter months.

Nice to be out in the sun on a comfortable Fall day

The market has a nice mix of produce, meats, and artist wares

The produce looked great

This organic produce stall was incredible from the variety and quality of the presentation

Hard not to buy

I haven't got a clue what Laura picked up

Laura cooking dinner

Live well, Laugh often, Love much

Nye Beach

Overlooking the Pacific Ocean is the Newport neighborhood of Nye Beach. Known for its restaurants, eclectic shops, and artists, Nye Beach has a welcoming feel that beckons you to explore the streets or take a walk on the beach.

Don't miss Nye Beach when you visit Newport

Parts of Nye Beach have a "New Urbanism" feel with housing and
commercial use blended together in a walkable neighborhood 

Beach Access

Laura with Yaquina Head Lighthouse in the background

The shops of Nye Beach

A fun Irish shop to visit, we seem to always leave with something

Flowers and gardens are common in Nye Beach

The Benches of Nye Beach

Perhaps owing to its community of artists, not even the park benches sprinkled about the neighborhood are ordinary.

Live well, Laugh often, Love much

Yaquina Bay Lighthouse

Overlooking the channel to Newport is Yaquina Bay Lighthouse and state park. With access to the beach, picnic tables, and great perches to look down at the channel and the beach, it is a nice spot to stop if only to enjoy the views.

Yaquina Bay Lighthouse

Laura enjoying the day out

Dale takes a break from behind the camera

Marine research vessels frequent the port

Live well, Laugh often, Love much

Depoe Bay

North of Newport is the town of Depoe Bay. Known for great shore-side whale watching, tourist shops, and the narrow channel leading to its harbor, our motivation on this trip was lunch at theTidal Raves Seafood Grill (tidalraves.com).

Tidal Raves Seafood Grill

Dale's lunch

The view from the restaurant's dining room windows

Throughout lunch we watched whales.  I don't think I ever waited more than a minute before seeing a whale surface.

Depoe Bay is known as the world's smallest harbor.  Below is my video of the entrance.

This YouTube drone video is excellent: www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_kpaMvRJk4

How not to enter Depot Bay by boat:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUwXuHPktc4

Live well, Laugh often, Love much

South Jetty Yaquina River

The South Jetty is a great spot to bring your chairs and enjoy the marine traffic as it comes from and goes to the ocean. Also, fun to watch are the breakers as the waves throw spray over the top of the North Jetty on windy days. On this day we came by car, but this area is easily accessible from the RV park by bike due in part to the great road and the flatness of the area.

Laura enjoying a beautiful day on the South Jetty

Dredge working at the mouth of the channel

Live well, Laugh often, Love much

Lunch on Newport's Historic Bayfront District Waterfront

As a still active fishing waterfront, historic Bayfront is a blend of tourist attractions and a gritty working port. Any visit to Newport needs to set aside time to enjoy the restaurants, shops, and sights in this neighborhood.

Typical Bayfront architecture

On this visit to Bayfront, our destination was the Clearwater restaurant that had opened in the two years since our last visit to the area (www.clearwaterrestaurant.com).

The Clearwater restaurant

I grew up in a time when everything from spinach and asparagus to Brussels sprouts and peas was boiled and cooked to death to create a miserable bitter tasting mess that passed as "eat your vegetables".  I know this wasn't limited to the home I grew up in as a child, because my friends described the same experience.  This all changed for me in the 90's with Laura's formal culinary training.  Today I enjoy a diverse palette of cooked vegetables and have come to understand that it is about how they are prepared.  I relate this story because Brussels sprouts is one of those foods I shivered at as a kid as I tried to swallow it without tasting it when it was served.  The Clearwater prepares a crispy Brussels sprouts appetizer that is amazing.

The crispy Brussels sprouts appetizer was awesome!

Laura and I are pretty low-carb, and Laura is gluten-free.  That translates into typically not having dessert, but I made an exception at the Clearwater because I was fascinated by the idea of a carrot cake waffle (Laura's carrot cake and icing are world class).  Wow! This dessert is not to be missed.

Carrot cake waffle dessert, OMG!

Our seat at the Clearwater placed us next to the windows overlooking the bay.   Despite the broken clouds, it was a beautiful day.

View from the Clearwater

We got to watch a regatta during lunch

The Clearwater also looks down on the seal docks

Live well, Laugh often, Love much

Newport Marina RV Park

October brought us to Newport for nine days (October 7-15) in the motorhome.  Our last visit to this wonderful Oregon coast town was in September 2015.  The week's forecast was a combination of sunny days with the occasional rainy one thrown in, and we were very much looking forward to the cooler weather.

Newport Marina RV Park

I contribute to online reviews of RV parks (i.e. www.rvparkreviews.com, www.rvparky.com, and www.parkadvisor.com).  I mostly do it to counter the reviews by people who must go through life seeing the glass always half empty based on the horrible things they write sometimes.  I strive to write an honest review, that doesn't forget to point out what I really liked about the destination.  Reading RV park reviews reveals that tastes vary widely.  Those with satellite dishes will complain about heavily forested sites, and those staying in a park with great satellite dish reception will complain about the lack of trees.  It is the Kobayashi Maru no-win scenario, you just can't make all of the people happy all of the time.  Fortunately, it is pretty easy to filter through the unfair reviews and discount people's bias, in order to gain a general sense of what to expect when you arrive.

Pull-in site #21 was our home for the week.  We'd stayed in site #22 two years ago.  Situated next to the marina, the RV park provides great walking and biking opportunities, and the facility serves as an excellent home base from which to explore the region.

Lots to see on walks

We stayed in site 21

The odd thing about the layout of the RV park is that it is mistakenly pointing in the wrong direction, which means your rig is facing away from the marina and the iconic Newport Bridge (sites 6-12 and 27-36 are exceptions). Despite any shortcomings pointed out in reviews about the park, it was full on the weekends, and about half full mid-week.

Typical pull-thru sites

These prime sites (#27-36) are all back-in sites which are unless for motorhomes.

Perimeter sites are wide enough to park the RV and the toad on the pad.

Wi-Fi Access, Quality, and Performance

Online reviews warn of the spotty Wi-Fi, and that was our experience yet again two years later.  The Wi-Fi varied from so slow that you couldn't even browse the Internet to just OK.  Unlike two years ago, I was able to do some work via the park's Wi-Fi.

At home I'm a Comcast/Xfinity Internet customer, so normally when the "free" Wi-Fi is useless, I look for an Xfinity access point in the area.  I've outfitted my Safari with a dedicated Wi-Fi antenna connected to a router inside the motorhome.  The antenna connects to the up and down TV antenna mechanism (see photo).  This arrangement helps us connect to weak and distant Wi-Fi access points.  Unfortunately, Xfinity isn't available in the Newport area, and there didn't seem to be any commercial ISPs offering pay-for-use Wi-Fi either.  Fortunately for me, the Verizon 4G/LTE was a solid 3-4 bars with good data performance, so when the Wi-Fi was unreliable, I turned my mobile phone into an access point and used my mobile data plan.

Live well, Laugh often, Love much