Livin' the Sunbird Life: August 13-26, 2012: Two weeks in Newport, Oregon

August 26, 2012

Pacific Shores RV Resort, Newport, Oregon

As always, please feel free to click on any picture to enlarge it...

Sometimes, you just can’t keep to a schedule. We’d planned to be here for a week but ended up staying two. That’s one of the wonderful things about our lifestyle.

We’ve stayed at this park before, back in 2006 according to me pre-Blog travel log. It was one of a network of upscale developed under the “Outdoor Resorts of America” brand name, most with backing by upper-end motorhome manufacturers. This park was developed by Marathon, one of the largest “converters”; they take Prevost Bus shells and make custom motorhomes for $1.5 million and up. I guess the theory was that their clientele needed a place to go with their expensive coaches. They operate like condo associations, with lot owners buying their space and paying HOA dues for maintenance. When the owners are away, the management company oversees rentals and the owners share in the proceeds, often making enough to cover their taxes and/or fees.

This was all good until the bottom fell out of the economy. While Marathon survived, Outdoor Resorts didn’t. Some of the parks floundered, some found new developers who bought for a song and finished development, and the remainder went through various bankruptcy proceedings and ended up being turned over to the HOAs.

Apparently, the court proceedings here were nasty and protracted. The judge ruled against allowing short-term rentals and refused to release funds for maintenance. Things went down hill pretty rapidly.

Fortunately for us, the bankruptcy issues were resolved and the park was back in business in early-August. We found out on the Internet that they were back, so we booked a week’s stay at their reduced “winter rates” because so much of the park is in need of repair and refurbishing. As it turned out, we ended up extending our stay.

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The biggest thing we’ll remember about this stay is that we definitely beat the heat that’s been plaguing much of the country! It’s been downright chilly; we’ve needed sweatshirts and long pants, and I needed to put the heat on a couple of mornings to “take the chill off”. The site we were assigned has a custom glass-paned wind break. Unfortunately, we found that it causes more "wind swirl" than shelter, but that may be due to the direction and velocity of the winds!

The first week was also cloudy and foggy with temperatures in the 50s, and some rain on and off. We remembered that from our 2006 visit, when we didn’t see the sun in the Park for three weeks in a row. The sun was out on the other side of US-101; we could see the blue sky. But the particular way the land is shaped helps the prevailing summer winds from the north just blow fog right across the Park grounds.

During the second week, our friends Wayne and Eva brought the sunshine! They caught up with us for the first time since we saw them in Indio in early May. We’ll “hopscotch” each other down the coast from here, following the same basic route but with different stops and durations.

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So, what did we do for two weeks? Well, we went to the beach a few times, giving the pups (and us) some exercise. They both love the beach. Maya’s not a big fan of the water, but she loves to run. I took a short video of one day’s adventure:

I took a walk (well, a hike really, about 5 miles) to the nearby Yaquina Head Lighthouse one day. Since it’s run by the National Park Service, there was no fee like at some of the state and local facilities. Yaquina Head is a peninsula just north of Newport, and the views are pretty nice.

The views are nice from the RV Park as well when the weather turns nicer and the sun sets. We were able to get pictures from the bluff the Park sits on during a couple of sunsets.

We went to a local crab shack (literally, a shack) in part of town called South Beach for lunch one day. We both remember eating there before on our last visit, but the memorable things wasn’t the seafood. It was the awesome cocktail sauce made with killer horseradish. In fact, I distinctly remember getting some of the horseradish to go the last time. Well, things have changed; they no longer offer that. Geri did get a small container of the cocktail sauce, though, so we picked up a bag of shrimp. It’ll be great for clearing our sinuses...

We took a couple of “scenic drives” once the weather improved, which in this area pretty much means driving north or south along US-101. Our first was to Depoe Bay, a little town just north of Newport. And by “little”, we really mean little, as their claim to fame is the “World’s Smallest Harbor”. Of course, we had to get a picture, and poke around in all the little shops.

Just north of the harbor is an overlook turnout, and we were able to do a little whale watching without having to go on a boat. This area is known for gray whales and most migrate annually between Baja California in the winter and points north in the summer. Some pods have decided to stay in one place, though. They’re called “resident pods” and one uses Depoe Bay as a base. We saw three, I think, feeding relatively close to shore.

Of course, the area is still nice even without the whales...

Once Wayne and Eva arrived, we had another beautiful sunset so we packed up all the camera gear and headed to the Park’s designated overlook, which should probably be known as “Sunset Point”. It was still breezy and chilly, so we all bundled up.

Later in the week, Wayne and Eva moved down to Waldport, about 20 miles south of Newport. They stayed at a friend’s beachfront lot, and we went down for an afternoon of lunch and beach-combing.