Day Five (9/19/2010)

South Beach State Park  (Newport, Oregon)

After a windy night in the South Beach State Park, we had breakfast, then went for a walk on the beach.  This park is only one mile south of  Newport, and is located right on the beach.

Beautiful beach, but I had to struggle to find even a little stick for Angus to chase.



But I finally did, after ripping it off of a nearby log.  Angus wouldn't let go. 

Bonnie, on the beach near Newport, basking in the warm, balmy weather.



Lots of good stuff to smell on a beach 

Ernest Hemingway's "Old Man and the Sea"

Es una playa muy bonita

After a morning walk on the beach, we drove back to Newport and took in the Oregon Coast Aquarium, which is a pretty nice place, although not as large as some others, such as the one in Monterrey, I'm sure.  While there, one of those "six-degrees-of-separation" things occurred.  As I was buying camera batteries in the aquarium gift shop, the clerk noticed my navy baseball cap, and asked me if I had been in the navy.  When I told him, "yes," he said that he was in it, too, and had also been a guide in Bremerton, Washington, giving tours aboard a destroyer that is now open to the public.  When I asked him which one it was (knowing full well which one), he said, "the Turner Joy."  I told him that was my old ship, and that I was even a plankholder (a member of the first crew ever aboard the ship, after it was commissioned).  Small world.



An Ethereal Coelenterate


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Grooming time, which, for a sea otter, is all the time



One of those strange things you can see in an aquarium
No, it's not bad photography, it's Bonnie looking at the camera, after sticking her head up "into" a weird tank full of fish.  The tank is built with a clear plastic bottom that is built in such a way that you can squat down, going underneath, then sticking your head up, making it look as though you are under the water.  Wait...no, maybe that's actually a picture of one of those strange deep-sea fish that most people will never see in their whole life. 

Tidepool Critters, of course

After leaving the aquarium, we returned to the Starbucks where we had been the previous night.  I dropped Bonnie off at a laundromat which was about two or three blocks away, first, then settled into a wallside chair, and did the day's blog. 

Afterwards, we returned to the South Beach Campground, and settled in for the night.