Clara's Blog

We're back from the beach! We stayed at Darla's beach house near Nye Beach in Newport, Oregon. Mommy and Daddy went there once before with Darla and Uncle Jeff. Anyway, Daddy wanted a break from work so we asked Cathey and Tom (Darla's parents) if we could go down to the beach house for a while.

We had lots of fun. We tried to go swimming on Nye Beach even though it was really windy and the water was freezing. That was pretty funny. We also went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. It was cool to see all the fish and the birds and stuff. We saw feeding time for the seals and sea lions and it was neat to see them work for their food. They work much harder than Scout does.

I think maybe my favorite part (aside from the gift shop and my new fish friends I brought home for the tub) was the Passages of the Deep where we walked through a tunnel and we could watch the sharks and fish swim around us.

Another day, we went to Devil's Punchbowl and Mommy took a lot of photos while we explored. It was really cool to walk through arches and to peak in caves. I didn't really want to go into the caves though. I'll stick with arches and bolders, thanks. We also explored the beach and tide pools some. A couple of people told Mommy that there was a baby seal resting on shore but we couldn't see it. We walked around and looked around and then Daddy saw it.....right next to us! It was behind a rock and Daddy didn't see it until we got to the rock!

We got away from the baby seal really fast so we wouldn't bother him but Mommy used her big lens to look at him and take some pictures. (Mostly he semed sleepy and relaxed.) I can't believe we saw a baby seal that close in the wild. We also saw his family out in the water - they were keeping an eye on us and the baby. We had to high tail it out of there so his family wouldn't get mad and because the tide was coming in. Good thing we did that - we had to walk through the water (only a foot, don't freak out people!) to get back to the main beach and then the car. After that, we went up on the cliff and we looked down into Devil's Punchbowl from above (it was filled with water by now) and we saw some whales out in the ocean. What a day!

We thought we might have a similarly cool adventure at the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area. We all thought that Cobble Beach was really cool (it is pretty much all cobbles) but there were so many flies we were going crazy! We also went at the wrong time to check out tidepools and I wasn't tall enough to go in the lighthouse. We'll have to try again another time.

Anyway, all in all it was a great trip. One of my favorite parts was just walking around and playing in Darla's beach house. I'm not sure why but I really think it is a fun place. Maybe it's just because Darla is such a sweetheart. Scout has always thought so! Woof! I'm already asking if we can go back again.

Labels: aquarium, Darla's house, Devil's Punch Bowl, Newport, Nye Beach, Oregon Coast Aquarium, Yaquina Head