We left the KOA fairly early, since we needed to drive over 6 hours, plus we wanted to stop several places along the way. Our first stop was in Tillamook to see their creamery and hopefully get some fresh ice cream. I knew the factory didnt open until 10am, but from what Id read they had a store/cafe that opened at 5am. Well, we found the factory where they give tours and it was only 9am, but we never found the store, so no ice cream. From here we headed South along the Oregon coastline, looking the interesting overviews and such that wed read about. We didnt find any for over an hour, the Three Arches (I think), but the tide was low, so it was so impressive. All along the way South, we looked for an often found what would have been nice views, but the fog made them less than photogenic.
We finally reached one of the major stops, the Devils Punchbowl and were lucky that that area, at that time, was clear. Near the punchbowl, their was a pretty good stretch of sandy beach, and even though it seemed quite cold to us, the beach was loaded
with surfers and others wearing wetsuits. Oh well, we enjoyed the views. The Devils Punchbowl was really cool, and Im sure it would have been even more impressive at high or higher tide when the shooting out. Our next stop was Newport, a pretty busy, and touristy fishing harbor. Since it was getting to be lunch time, we found what looked like a decent seafood restaurant called The Local Ocean. It was so busy we had to put our names on their list and wait, but only about 10 minutes. The restaurant is right on the harbor and we got a table at the 2nd floor window. What a view! Manoli ordered a large crab salad and I had a bowl of crab soup and a skewer of scallops. My soup was quite good, and the scallops, with asparagus and other dressings were delicious!
After lunch, we walked a bit further down the harbor, since wed heard you can spot sea lions near the shore sometimes. Unfortunately, we didnt get lucky, but it was a nice walk and we watched some folks pull crab traps in from the pier. We got back in the car and continued
on down the coast, stopping one more time, to view the Devils Churn. After a rather steep climb down from the parking area of the viewpoint, we reach the Devils Churn. It was a split in the rocks that narrowed for a while, then ended in a deepish hole where the water... churned I guess. Quite a climb down and then over a lot of rocky ground, but well worth the effort. Besides the split ending in a hole with water splashing out, about half of the way was covered with weird colored... lichen I guess. Green and yellow for the most part, but it did not look natural or normal.
After climbing back up to the car, we continued on highway 101, passing through the little town of Bandon, then about 16 miles later arrived at the Bandon/Port Orford KOA Journey. I finally found out what the difference was between a KOA Journey and a KOA Holiday. The Journeys are more for travelers, only spending a night or two and were usually close to a major highway and tend to have less special things like hot tubs, deluxe cabins, and other amenities. This KOA was right off highway
101, and I mean right off, like the entrance was on the highway! It does have a swimming pool and even a hot tub, but our cabin is by itself and whole place is a lot smaller than others were. Our cabin did have a refrigerator, and a heater, but the heater was broken and we had to exchange it twice to get one that worked. Also, the WiFi was so weak I had to wait until the next day to publish this blog.
After settling in, I found one of the few places open after 6pm, in the nearest town of Port Orford. The Salty Dog Highway 101 was mostly a bar, but they had some interesting sounding burgers. I ended up ordering the mushroom and swiss burger, with fries. It was quite tasty and the fries were quite good too. Tomorrow we plan on driving further south on Highway 101 to see a number of other interesting seaside sights.
