Thursday June 16- Cinnamon rolls, Toledo, Newport Bayfront, Sea Lions, Seals, Sunset

Posted on June 20, 2011 by deniselg

e woke up to cloudy skies. At 10 AM Whalers Rest was having Cinnamon Rolls, so we stopped on our way out of the park at the Family Center for some freshly baked Cinnamon Rolls. We arrived after they had finished off a tray, so we had to wait for a fresh batch. Wow, was that tough. We did not notice how huge they were until the Ranger served them to us. I should have taken a picture, but did not think of it in time. If we had known how big they were, we would have ordered just one. They were
delicious!

We went north and drove past the Newport Elks Lodge on our way to the town of Toledo where there is a “Main Street Market” every Thursday. Today’s was to be the first of the season. Since there was a covered bridge, just a few miles farther on Rt. 20, we decided to stop there first. This was a mistake. There was construction on the road. We had to stop for 40 minutes, waiting. Then we ended up driving two miles through the construction area, where of course no one was working. About a mile past the end of the construction
we found the Chitwood Covered Bridge.In 1893 the first bridge was built for $300. Because it was not covered, it rapidly deteriorated. The second bridge, also not covered, and supported with wood beams,was built in 1904. It also deteriorated rapidly. The third bridge, at this spot, was built in 1926, using cement supports and was built with a covering. The bridge has a wooden floor and air vents at the top, near the roof. The cost for this was $4000.

Fortunately, we timed the return trip pretty well, with only a 5 minute wait. We continued to the Main Street Market. We were pretty disappointed, as there was no produce. We bought some new pot holders. Then went to lunch at the Main Street Café. This was a nice little ‘mom and pop’ type café, where the town gathers to gossip. We had a nice lunch, then drove back to Newport.

We stopped at the Newport Bayfront. Newport is the west coast home base for both the Coast Guard and the NOAA Fleet. We parked and walked the 3-4 blocks of the bay front area. There are lots of art galleries, glass stores, restaurants, and fresh seafood markets. We went to Aunt Belinda’s candy store. They had some wild salt water taffy flavors, but we each bought 1 piece of excellent chocolate. We might stop in there again! We stopped in a kitchen store and the “made in Oregon” store, where we bought another bottle of the Homewood Black Jack. We have found that we can buy a couple of the Homewood wines in the grocery store, but not the ones that we tasted, other than the Blackberry. I took pictures of the murals as we were walking.

We could see a crowd standing on the dock next to the Under Sea Garden. We went to take a look, and found these Steller Sea Lions sunning. Aren’t these two love birds cute!The Sea Lions have ear flaps and large front flippers which they use to move on land and swim. These are Steller Sea Lions, a federally threatened species. They have light brown or auburn fur and sound like a roaring lion (of course these guys were snoozing in the sun). They are found from central California to the Bering Sea. They feed on fish they catch themselves, primarily bottom species such as skate, squid and varieties of rock fish.

Then we heard a seal just carrying on; another seal was climbing the rocks, and the first seal, closest to the water, was not happy about it and was yelling! The town has put microphones on the rock, so you can hear the seals around town. These were Harbor Seals, which have spotted light to dark grey fur and spend their lives close to shore hunting for small fish.

We returned to the motor home, walked the dogs, updated the blog, then went to the South Beach Seafood Shack for fresh cooked seafood for dinner to take back to the motor home.

Since the afternoon had turned sunny, around 8:30 PM we took the dogs, jumped in the car, and ran across Hwy. 101 to the state park to watch the sunset. We were not the only ones there! Bob took the dogs out on the beach and let them run for awhile.I managed to get a couple of good sunset pictures, even though there were cloud on the horizon.