Some scenic landmarks

I got a lovely lemon and ginger scone for the ammended breakfast. DH, after poking his stale dried biscuit and onion-salt flavored gravy, said to hell with it and went hungry (How can he DO that? I HAVE to eat!)

So we drove up to see the Devil's Punchbowl. Actually, it's more of a toilet bowl when the tide is in. The tide was out when we got there, so we went away and came back later.


Here's the Devil's Punchbowl, mid-way through a flush cycle. During a good storm, the water really swirls and churns around in here. Weather is mild right now, so the waves just washi in and out through the hole you can see in the back.


Yaquina Head Lighthouse, built in 1878 (I think.) The wind will take your hair off. Lots of bald lighthouse keepers in these parts. The lighthouse no longers functions as such. It is now in the middle of a bird sanctuary. Hundreds of thousands of common murres and a few thousand cormorants sure can make a lot of noise. The off-shore rocks were so crowded that I swear they were standing on one another's feet.










There used to be a lighthouse at Cape Foulweather. The light is gone, but the house remains. It's a wonderful place for spotting whales as they migrate north to feeding grounds in the Gulf of Alaska. We didn't see any.

A last tourist attraction is the Sea Lion dock in Newport. There used to be docks for the sport fishermen to pull in, tie up overnight, and get an early start on the day. The sea lions began hanging out on these docks. Pretty soon, they began climbing up into the boats. So what are you going to do at 4 AM when you try to get into your outboard, and there's a 400 lb sea lion sitting in it and barking at you like he owns the damn boat? Are you going to shoo it away? Sure. Wave your hands at it and say, "Shoo." Be ready to run, though. Those suckers are evil tempered and lunge much faster than you would think. Some half-drunk redneck shot one, and the animal rights people had a runaway! Since no one could figure a way to keep the sea lions out of the boats, they finally gave up and got rid of the docks, except for this one. Tomorrow, more pictures of sea lions, and some professional beggars we encountered.