The Oregon Coast with Dr. Janelle

Corinne Family, National Parks & Monuments, Sightseeing 1 Comment

Look who we found on the Oregon Coast! It’s Dr. Janelle, PhD in Coastal Ecology. Whatever shall we learn? Come take a ride with us exploring along the iconic U.S. Highway 101.

It was a good mother/daughter week!
The drive along U.S. Highway 101 is not to be believed. It is just GORGEOUS!

Before I go too much further, I should give you an update on Jim. When we left Bend, he was under the weather with some sort of non-COVID virus. He managed the 4 hour drive from Bend to Newport with a stop halfway for a nap. I WOULD like to report he is completely over the virus, but he’s not. As I write this, it’s day 16. The fever, chills and most of the aches are gone. But his knees are still sore and he tires very quickly. We’ve consulted with a doctor friend, a nurse friend, and of course, his knee surgeon’s office. He just needs to wait this out. Fortunately, driving isn’t overly fatiguing. And I can drive (and have) the Blue Flame on Interstates without construction. But let’s not go there unless we have to.

Back to our coastal travel tales….we made our way from Bend to the town of Newport, Oregon. It is one of many little tourist towns along the coast. We were luck enough to get a campsite at South Beach State Park for seven nights. Thank you to whoever cancelled their campsite reservation at the last minute!

All the towns along the coast seem to have been established along rivers that run into the Pacific Ocean. These towns also all seem to have unique bridges going over these rivers. Newport was no exception. This is the Yaquina Bay Bridge.
A jetty built where the river exits to the ocean created the beautiful sandy beach that bordered our campground. No complaints from us!

Janelle had been in California hugging redwood trees…literally. She made the drive north and now joined us for a few weeks.

Janelle had been on the road for 32 days when she joined up with us. I brought from home the fixings for garbage plates and she had a treat upon her arrival. If you have no idea what a garbage plate is, you can view the Wikipedia article here. Enough said.

With Janelle’s arrival, the exploration of the Oregon Coast began in earnest.

South Beach State Park

At low tide, Janelle and I walked over from our campsite to the jetty that formed that sandy beach I mentioned earlier.
I say “What a pretty beach.” Janelle says “Wow, what can I find here???” In this instance, she was looking for crabs. Of course she was, crabs were part of her PhD research!
With it being low tide, tide pools and their residents were revealed. Here we have an orange starfish along with some closed up sea anemomes.
We also spotted many purple starfish.

The exploring had begun!

Devil’s Punch Bowl

Another day, Janelle and I drove a bit north to the Devil’s Punch Bowl State Natural Area.

Wave action over the years has carved a bowl into the rock.
From up high, it is supposed to be a great spot for whale watching. Unfortunately, it’s the wrong time of the year for spotting whales. They are all out a sea.
But we did spot surfers, lots of them. From this vantage point, they were fun to watch. But it looked like an awfully lot of work for an awfully short ride.
We made our way down a path to the beach to do some exploring. The path surprisingly had more than just trees.
I had no idea fuchsias grew in the wild. Duh! Back home, they are always in hanging baskets.
A falling star flower.
Morning glories were in abundance too.
We made our way to sea level. What can we see in the morning mist?
As the morning progress, the mist lifted. FYI…Janelle called this a tide zone, not a tide pool.

Tide pools are found in rocky intertidal zones. These zones exist in areas where steep rocky coastlines meet the ocean. Tide pool marine life must endure being exposed to air at low tide and rough waves at high tide. To survive in this rugged environment, tide pool inhabitants often cling very tightly to any rock to which they can adhere and have ways of sealing themselves up so they don’t dry out during low tides. Some larger marine life like fish and crabs are much more able to move about freely and follow the water as it flows in and out.

Yes, I totally had Janelle edit that paragraph above. She gets credit for the lucid explanation.

The happy explorers.

Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area

Just north of Newport, is the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area. “From exploring tide pools teeming with life to witnessing Oregon’s tallest lighthouse, there is something for every visitor at Yaquina Head.” (https://www.blm.gov/learn/interpretive-centers/yaquina) Janelle and I made the most of this visit.

The visit was doubly exciting for me, I was able to use my “Geezer Pass” for the first time. Geezer Pass? When you reach a certain age, you can purchase a Lifetime National Parks Pass. It gets you and your party free entrance to the entire National Parks system AND half price camping. The Geezer Pass (as we like to call it), is one of the few benefits of getting old.

The Yaquina Head Light, built in 1873. It is still in use today.
An easily navigated path led down to the shore for some more tidal zone exploring.
Where’s Janelle? She’s out there! Janelle is in a teal jacket a little left of center.

Take note of the rocks that edge the tidal zone. They look easy enough to walk across, don’t they?

These are those same rocks up close. They were two to four inches in diameter, smoothly rounded, and slid easily against each other. I might as well have been walking on ice as I traversed them. I regretted not having my trekking poles as I clumsily made my way across the stones. But the walk was worth it. The things we saw!
An open green sea anemone.
Janelle’s is pointing at purple sea urchins.
Janelle’s traveling companion Chicken was hanging out with a nudibranch. FYI, you can follow Janelle and Chicken’s traveling adventures at https://twitter.com/TrophicTopics. Finding a nudibranch made Janelle’s day, honestly!
This orange blob is a gumboot chiton. Janelle’s foot is for scale. Too bad she had on sandals and NOT a gumboot.

All in all, it was a great week exploring the Oregon Coast with Janelle while Jim convalesced. When we scored the campsite at South Beach State Park, I had no idea all the sights we would be able to see within easy reach of the campground!

Janelle in one of her happy places.

Alas, after a week of playing, it was time to move on. Our next major destination was going to involve some dry camping and our solar panels had not been cleaned in a long time. I knew the solution to that problem.

That’s right, that’s Janelle cleaning our solar panels for us. Honestly, she loves hanging out on the roof of the RV. Cleaning the solar panels was just an excuse for her to get on the roof again.

What’s next? How about Crater Lake National Park. Stay tuned….

One thought on “The Oregon Coast with Dr. Janelle”

  1. dominiquefeather

    Whoa — I’ve never seen a purple starfish — neat. I like tidal pools — they have neat things in them. Thanks for all the pictures and glad that you and Janelle had a good week. Nice that you were able to put her to work 🙂

    Hope Jim is beginning to feel better.

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