Thursday, August 27: The morning was spent returning the rental car and driving across the state to the coast. We stopped first in Lincoln City, ate our lunch there and spent some time on the beach. The day was perfect with lots of sunshine and a nice cool breeze off the ocean.

This time I got my feet in the ocean!

Oops, that wave was higher than expected!

From there we took part of the Otter Crest Loop scenic drive. There were some fabulous overlook stops along the way. We could see whales swimming by and got some video of a couple of them. We also visited the Cape Foulweather Visitor center on that route.

Waiting for lunch to arrive

The lighthouse in the distance was our next stop

Our next stop was in Newport at the Yaquina Head Lighthouse. First we went through the visitor center with great displays telling the history of the lighthouse. Then we hiked to the lighthouse - we wouldn’t have had to hike so far except that the lady at the entrance booth suggested we should park the camper in the visitor center parking lot so we thought there would not be parking at the light house. Not so but, oh well, we got plenty of exercise again today.

We noticed lots of people walking around on the beach below so went down there to check it out. The tide was out and there were some great tide pools with interesting creatures such as star fish, anemones, and lots of mussels. There were also many seals basking in the sun on the large rocks near the beach.

The photographer's assistant

Great photos take lots of work

Yaquina Head Lighthouse

Once we were done exploring around the light house area it was time to head to our campsite for the night. We have an amazing site at the Beachside State Park right on the ocean. We decided to eat supper on the beach and stayed there until sunset. The sky was clouding over quite a bit so we couldn’t see much of the sun, however the sky was beautiful hues of blue and purple.

View of the beach from our campsite

Our guard seagull standing watch while we watch the sunset