Today was yet another fun day. No fog this morning, and the day stayed bright and sunny, but it was still cool – in the 50s. After having a leisurely time with the coffee, we headed out for the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport OR, about 15 miles north of us. I wasn’t expecting too much from this aquarium since it is located in a small town, but it truly was impressive.
Their indoor exhibits were displayed beautifully with lots of signage: crabs, sea anemone, sea pads (something I had never seen before!), star fish, jelly fish, plumose anemone (which I loved for its soft flower-like appearance and is the photo of the day), strawberry anemone (which I loved for its wonderful color), sand dollars which I had never seen live before, a touching pool.
Outside in a nifty mountainous rock (a la Disney) maze were all kinds of exhibits. I loved the seabirds and got a wonderful short movie of a pigeon guillemot going nuts in the water – skimming across the water, diving, shaking his feathers and just generally acting like he was on crack. There were also tufted puffins which have always been a favorite of mine along with some black oystercatchers and murres. Sea birds can be so much fun.
They had sea otters, sea lions, and harbor seals. There was an indoor aquarium with the acrylic tunnel to walk through with lots of rockfish, sharks, rays, and other fish. As we were leaving, I saw a new wildflower that a grounds keeper identified as a clarkia amoena. We spent much longer there than we had anticipated, and I could have spent another couple of hours, too.
We drove into town to eat at Mo’s Chowder, a Newport institution since the late 1940s. Bill found Mo’s in our Road Trips book and had to eat there. We got in pretty quickly and another couple was soon seated at our table too. We had a lovely conversation with them while we had our lunch. Bill got seafood cioppino and I got the grilled wild salmon steak. Both of us were happy with our lunches including an interesting cabbage salad with baby shrimp on top. We had a marion berry cobbler for dessert.
Then we had to drive 10 miles up the coast to Otter Rock to see the Devil’s Cauldron and a Mo’s annex where Bruce Springsteen supposedly visited in 1987. The Cauldron was interesting as was the seabirds in the surf fishing on the beautiful coastline.
When we got back to the RV about 5, we did our laundry. It was a small laundry room, and I got to chat with a nice chick from British Columbia who was on her first long trip with her husband and two kids. Next a guy from Chicago came in and while he waited for the dryers, we talked about his motorcycle trip from Chicago to ride the Pacific Coast highway down to San Diego. One can certainly meet interesting people along the road.
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