The Beautiful Oregon Coast (vacation time)

We recently returned from a family vacation at the Oregon Coast.

What a beautiful place!

We had our whole family together for five days and it was relaxing, fun, educational, and maybe a bit hectic on occasions.

We stayed at the perfect place-Sea Glass Cottage in Depoe Bay.  The house might not look too large in the pictures, but it was oozing with cottage beach charm and had enough bedrooms, bathrooms, and living space for all 21 of us.  Check out this link if you want to learn more about it.  Son-in-law Karl’s family found it last year and we are so grateful to the Nielsens because it was perfect.  (Yes, I have no shame in copying their family vacation.  They are experts-and they are nice enough to share ideas.)

We were right on the ocean front and that made it so nice.  The house had a lot of windows and you could enjoy watching the ocean and beach all the time, inside or out, on one of the decks, or in the hot tub.  Oh, how we enjoyed the sound of the water!  The house was above the beach on a rocky hill, but the short walk to the beach only took five minutes.  The middle house in the picture below shows its ocean side.

We planned activities that people were free to participate in, or do their own thing.  We did most of our activities around Depoe Bay and Newport, but did make the drive down to Florence to ride on a dune buggy in the sand dunes.  It was worth the two hour scenic and slow drive (the road signs called the traffic delays “congestion”) to get there.  The dunes were spectacular and our driver even let everyone out on a hill to play in the sand.

It doesn’t get any better than that!

On the drive back, we stopped at the Heceta Head Lighthouse.  The views here were spectacular!  We hiked up to the lighthouse and took so many pictures that we could fill up ten posts with different angles of the place.  (I’m trying to spare you picture overload, but it is very hard to do.)

This keeper’s house is now a bed and breakfast.  That would be a fun place to stay!

Another of our favorite activities this week included a whale-watching tour on a lovely boat called the Sampson.  It left from Depoe Bay, the “world’s smallest bay”.  We had a fun time watching the whales (yes, we saw some) and we loved the boat ride (most of us).

Newport also has a wonderful marine center called the Hatfield Marine Science Center.  It was very hands-on for the kids and had great displays, including a machine that created a tsunami.  The best part of the center was it was free, with just a donation box.

Meals were mostly cooked at the cottage, but we planned easy menus that didn’t take a lot of time to prepare.  We had a delicious lunch of fish and chips, and clam chowder at a place called Gino’s in Newport. (Moe’s was our first choice, but the wait was longer than our time frame.)

We may have been given our own private room at the very back of the restaurant, entered from the outside,  passing workers and huge cooking pots full of simmering soups to get there.  Do you think all the hungry, tired children in our party had anything to do with that?  We were isolated, but at least the food was delicious and our waitress took good care of us.

We also picked up some delicious Marionberry, Chcoclate, and Banana cream pies at the Chalet Bakery in Newport to take home for a yummy evening snack.  Here is the link for the bakery.

Our very favorite activity had to be beach time.

“Our” beach was perfect. 

Tomorrow I will post more of our adventures (yes, we have plenty of photos to share).

Come back if you dare!

♥

JoAnn

P.S.  Thanks to Liz and Irene for the picture collages.