Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 40: Late Afternoon, The Deco District

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This was a picture that was taken late in the afternoon the day before those I just posted at Beverly Beach. I wanted to drop a comment on this area of Newport before I moved on.

There's an area of Newport they locally call the Deco District. This also happens to be Newport's official downtown. The heart of it is the block of Coast Hwy between SW Hurbert St and SW Alder St. Specifically at Coast Hwy and Alder there are a School District admin building, a historic theater that's a church at this point, and the old Newport City Hall, which now houses a branch of the Pig 'n' Pancake Restaurant empire. They're all toward the end of this block you'll see in my picture:

Taken as is in this shot, late on an afternoon in the latter part of August during the long tail of the Covid pandemic, it seems a bit forlorn. But the Deco-styled tower front of the theater should be unmissable.

Google Street View of the corner, sharked by me just a few minutes ago, looks like this:

The type on the buildings forms an underpinning to the Art Deco visual grammar which unifies the awareness across the two buildings. I understand there's a mural with the Pig 'n' Pancake pig logo in Deco style as well. I regret now not taking a few more minutes, what we had, to take a few extra snaps, but we'll go to Newport again. 

It's a very charming touch to a very charming town. I've always loved Newport. 

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 38: The Coast Guard Station At Newport

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Another shot as we were getting our get-out-of-Newport (sad as that is) energy together, a true local landmark.

Not only is Newport a major place with NOAA, it's not unimportant to the US Coast Guard. Here, on SW Naterlin Drive, just up from the Bayfront, is the Newport Coast Guard Station. It is a terribly charming nautical thing in a town that's brimming with terribly charming nautical things. 

Alongside of it there is a retired motor lifeboat, CG-36503 Yaquina Bay, and it stands as a memorial to those who died doing their duty on the sea and three CG sailors are named particularly. Full information on that can be found at the link you visit if you click on these here words.

The building itself is very cozy looking, rather rustic in that seaside-town way. A small serrated edge is put on the charm by the Department of Homeland Security tag on the sign, but that is, alas, the planet we live on now.

A cute family tale:

Way back in the long-ago, when my late mother-in-law was but a young woman, she lived in Newport, which was where the family first came to rest in Oregon after leaving Montana (as I understand it). She worked as a cocktail waitress down in Waldport, and while coming home, as they reached the north end of the Bay Bridge, her car's muffler gave out with a bang.

Taking the car off the main drag for, I presume, safety's sake, meant turning down Naterlin Drive past the CG station. The bang on the bridge and the rumble of the car woke the personnel there, bringing the young Coasties out to investigate.

I don't know how the rest of that night worked out, but I imagine a young woman suffering car trouble in the middle of the night in a small town could have worse things happen than a group of hunky young service men in little more than skivvies coming out to see if they can offer an assist.

Calendars get made with less of an excuse than that. And so it goes.

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 37: How Not to Die After An Earthquake At Agate Beach

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I'd say the biggest change since I visited the beach as a kid is the constant awareness of whether or not you're in harms' way about a tsunami.

No, not biggest ... most fundamental, maybe would be better coinage. When I was a lad, earthquakes happened in California, not here, and what we then immaturely called tidal waves only happened in Japan. Oregon had volcanoes, but there had been no eruptions during my lifetime (until that time) or my parents' or grandparents', and nobody really talked about that until about 1970 or so. Cascade volcanoes were called dormant, and by dormant then we meant yeah, they erupted once but they don't do that any more, they've learnt how to behave LOL. 

Geologically, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest was a pretty boring place to be and we liked it that way. Now, of course, we know that Cascadia is quite almost all the time except when it isn't and then we probably all gonna die, enjoy your IPA, have a nice day, live it like it's your last ... aaaand anyway.

Tsunami awareness is not an offical Coastal Fact Of Life, and you see it in a great many places. Perhaps the scariest is the way they paint the boundaries to the hazard zones right on the pavement, which makes my mind start scripting a disaster movie with me and The Girl as the stars, but then, I just enjoyed the hell out of the disaster film Greenland, so there's me for you.

But a little knowledge is power, and it's provided accessibly and for free, because at almost every public beach access, you get a geology lesson, or at least you get this:

A color-coded save-your-ass guide to seeing the beach. Local streets and landmarks or clear and prominent, as well as the quickest way to high ground. Also note that there is more than one level of doom here. The buff color, which only encompasses the beach itself plus a little across the road, is the tsunami danger area for a distant quake. The light green is for when it gets serious, like if Cascadia Next actually happens.

Man, that takes in a bunch of ground, don't it?

Thankfully, the way to high ground isn't far, but ... well, you know how vacation drivers are. 

We still might be goners.

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 36: Burgers at Agate Beach

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Hamburgers.

The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast.

They're even more nutritious when you eat them with this view:

Nothing like this place anywhere near this place. This, then, ought to be the place. Word.

Agate Beach is just north of the central part of the city of Newport, and the way to get there is follow a local street creatively named NW Oceanview Dr. If one gets the feeling that this was the old Coast Highway, one would not be wrong about this, and at the place it bottoms out, there's a state wayside parking area on the inland side of the road, and a wide turnout on the shore side.

There's also a unit of the once-titanic Arctic Circle chain in Newport (yes, we miss these). We came armed with a couple of sides, fries and cheese curds, and nature's perfect food ... the hamburger (well, cheeseburgers). And we ate and just basked in the Coast air, and at this pint, eating burgers at the beach is pretty much peak Us. 

A few words about Agate Beach itself; it is so-named because it does indeed have agate tides. Latterly they are much fewer and far between than in our dimly-remembered past. An article online at Oregon Coast Beach Connection puts it thusly:

Long ago, Agate Beach had plenty of agates. They were hugely abundant. But according to Oregon coast agate expert and author K.T. Myers, the beach stopped being productive as long ago as the ‘60s. This came about when the jetties in Yaquina Bay were elongated, and dredging equipment also began dumping their sand load right off Agate Beach and Nye Beach. Winter storms could no longer cut through the 20-plus feet of sand dunes that grew in the area.

So, there's that. Sic transit gloria agates.

It's still lovely, and quintessentially Newport. So, there's also that.  

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 35: The West End Of Bay Boulevard

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Just one more of the Newport Bayfront before we move along ... and, moving along from Newport is very hard to do. It's an absurdly easy town to fall in love with.

At the west end of SW Bay Blvd, the view looks like this:

There's that extraordinarily lovely bridge again. It feels a little different in person than it does in picture, but there's a feeling of space in the way the arch of the main span of the Bay Bridge towers over the district there. It feels like a historically-great place, this corner of Newport. 

This happens at the extreme western end of SW Bay Boulevard. to the right, a single block of SW Bay Street connects you to SW 13th St, which leads you to the neighborhood between US 101 and the harborfront, there, or SW Naterlin Dr, which takes you directly back to 101 and the Bay Bridge and points north and south.

This part of Newport is tourist-trappy, but in the good way. These little colorful shops were browsed in at length by the Brown Eyed Girl, as she is wont to do, for two things: a tchotchke, to hang from her considerable keyring, and candy. 

The Oregon Coast is a place for candy shops. 

The one there on the right, Republic of Candy, and on the left, Brandy's Bargains. The narrow blue storefront in the middle is vacant, and I figured out why: noting some of the public notices posted thereabouts and the near-term plans of the shopkeepers, that segment of buildings is to be redeveloped. Brandy's moving to a place up on US 101, I think it was, and the PM of the Republic of Candy was going to re-orient his business to more upscale consumers, probably selling online, both reasonable and prudent stances to take, given the context of the times.

Brandy was a charming woman, and the Republic of Candy held many imports, not the least of which was an authentic English Mars bar (price: $3, and presumably worth it). They were both very conversational which was also expected: our experience held true, that few people like to talk about the work they do more than a merchant on the Oregon Coast.

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 34: The Street Blades Of The Bayfront

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Newport has, unusually so for a town of its modest size, a number of themed districts, each with its own branding. 

The Nye Beach district, with its center in the lower Northwest part of town and along the beach, is one of Newport's two historic town centers; the "Deco" District, along US 101, is Newport's current 'downtown' business district, stretching from the intersection of US 101 and Olive Street in the direction of the Bay Bridge. And, as I've touched on previously, there's the Historic Bayfront.

Of the three, the Historic Bayfront is the only one I saw that had fully-designed street blades to extend the sense of place. Here's one:

They're pleasing, but have issues. The follow are just my opinions, and can be taken any way one wants, or not taken at all. I mean, at least they cared enough to design a charming design for thies.

The real issue with this is the wild-west-style font used. While it suggests historic Western US rusticness, it seems an awkward fit; more Tombstone than seaport. And that's a artistic style point that is wholly academic, but on a practical level, it does affect readability. A street blade should communicate clearly, and this font encourages you to dawdle on it's artistic detail, which is not an optimal thing for a street blade. The thick slab-serif style may give problems to anyone whose vision is perhaps not at youthful optimum. The 'arabesques' bracketing S.W. BAY BLVD. also muddle things; are they trying to communicate that Bay Blvd runs both ways from the sign, or are they just decorations?

My suggestion would be to use a clearer font with less affectation. An example I'd cite are the blade sin the Old Town and Chinatown sections of Portland; they use the regular weight of Friz Quadrata, which works perfectly as a display font in this case and is visually attractive but not so much that the artistic part of it makes it unclear. 

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) part 33: Boats On The Bay

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The charm of the Yaquina Bayfront is, in a great way, derived from the fact that it's a working harbor. Commercial charters, commercial fishing boats, scientific missions from the NOAA dock on the other shore: the Yaquina Bay is a busy place.

And, just like any good port town, you can see the boats, up-close. 

Newport crams a lot of harbor city experience in a short distance. It's charming and pretty and I find it exhilarating.

That hatbox off in the background, near the left side of the frame? That's Newport's LNG terminal and I've always found it a bit offputting; it's a dangerous thing. I think it was built back in the 80s, though; they filled an area of the Sally's Bend flats, just east of McLean Point, and put this thing there. It's been there quite a while, however and seems to be running just fine and safe, so maybe I just worry too much.

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 32: Fleet Base Newport

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This is a view of Yaquina Bay from the street that goes down to the Bayfront from the end of the Bay Bridge. I think the name of the street is Naterlin Drive but it's featured on no street signs.

That dock with the three vessels parked along side and its support buildings adjacent is a very important part of our national infrastructure. It's NOAA's Marine Operations Center-Pacific ... essentially speaking, NOAA's US West Coast headquarters. It's NOAA's Pacific fleet base, and a very important thing to Newport, not to mention a rightful point of pride.

NOAA defines it thusly:

MOC-P supports five ships, including vessels homeported in California and Alaska. The center and ships are part of the Silver Spring, MD based NOAA Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, which includes civilians and NOAA Corps officers. 

The ships in NOAA’s Pacific fleet collect data essential to protecting marine mammals, coral reefs and historic shipwrecks, managing commercial marine fish stocks, understanding climate processes, and producing nautical charts that help keep mariners safe. NOAA ships also deploy and help maintain buoys that gather oceanographic and weather information and warn of tsunamis.

The Newport facility also houses the Marine Operations directorate, which oversees the Pacific, Pacific-Islands, and Atlantic marine centers and all NOAA ship operations.

Very important and vital.

I remember hearing a while back that NOAA was thinking of moving that facility out of Newport but our federal politicos Did The Thing That Had To Be Done and kept it based on the Oregon Coast. They have a lease running through 2039. 

Something every Oregonian should be proud of, I think.

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 32: Bay Boulevard, Newport, Oregon

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Bay Boulevard is Newport's Front Street, the first street layed out when they decided to plant the town here along Yaquina Bay. It follows the bay in its angular way, and its direction influenced the growth and layout of the original town, as a glance of the map of the town will suggest.

It's a charming area with cute shops and an attraction or two; not too far ahead and off to the right from where I was standing to take this picture used to be a tourist dive called the Undersea Gardens, which was a literal dive; one would walk down a gangway to a floating structure which allowed you to step into a room below water level and see the sea life. Divers would put on shows. It was sort of an inverted aquarium. Time moved on without it though; After about 50 years in business, the competition from the now-world class Oregon Coast Aquarium (how were you going to compete with Keiko?) and escalating maintenance costs spelled the end of the line for it. There was a Madame Toussaut's Wax Museum outpost down on the bayfront as well for a long time.

Up the street and around the corner, though, there's still a branch of the Ripley's Believe it or Not museum, though that's a little too touristy for us these days. 

The atmosphere, though? That still can't be beat. 

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 31: Something Something Bayfront Something Bay Bridge

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Some things make excellent backdrops for other things. The other thing here is the human activity and masts of fishing boats docked in the harbor area of Yaquina Bay; the some thing is a bridge I may have heard of somewhere, I don't know, I just don't know anymore.

The offshore mist, though, that, I've always found romantic and easy on the eyes. 

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 30: Mural of Neptune, Newport Bayfront

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Having returned to Newport from the Devil's Churn to Newport, we found another motel in town ($$$) but had a good night sleeping. The next day was looking for more memories.

Here's a pretty one. We lingered on Newport's Bayfront and it was a good thing because when we were tourists when I was a kid we rarely went down there. The Bayfront is pretty fantastic, a colorful place where there are cute shops, many fishing boats and a number for working seafood processors. The air is redolent with the smell of them, but it was a good smell.

This mural, with Neptune looking out in the direction of the bay, was on the side of a building toward the east end of the commercial area of Bay Boulevard.

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary), Part 27: Port-land, Oregon

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The symmetry of this sign pleases me greatly.

Portland is a city in Oregon, but Oregon is a Port-land as well. Waldport, Newport, here a port, there a port, everywhere a port-port.

The way the traffic has to access the bridge requires that the arrow for Newport points toward Waldport, and the one point to Waldport, Newport. Do not be misled ... or if you are, at least have fun with it. 

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 26: We Headed for Waldport After This Picture, Promise

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... however, I never promised I wouldn't ever post another picture of the Yaquina Bay Bridge, and that's a not-promise I never not am intending to not ... ah, break.

The narrow angle with the roadway (taken from the loop road around and under the bridge and next to that entrance to Yaquina Bay State Park) provides the visual punch and, not coincidentally, highlights the handsome styling of the bridge piers and supports.

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 25: 2 Yaquina Bay 2 Bridge

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This is from the other side of the highway, on the street that leads down to the Newport bayfront.

I told you I was stupid in love with this bridge. 

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 24: The Yaquina Bay Bridge

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Bayside cities are defined by their bridges. Newport hit the lottery jackpot here.

Carrying US 101 over the mouth of Yaquina Bay, the bridge could be iconic of the general design of almost all notable coastal bridges: the arches, the combination of Art Deco and Art Moderne design motifs, the simple efficiency and the understated yet remarkable beauty. All these were the design gifts of the vision of Conde McCulloch, who came to Oregon in the early part of the 20th Century.

This bridge was built across the mouth of Yaquina Bay in 1936, and I am stupid in love with it.

Connecting the bluff of the town area of Newport with the flats of South Beach, it has only two lanes, which undoubtedly gets kind of awkward during rush hours in Newport; the highway north of the bridge is four lanes of arterial boulevard. 

I imagine they'll eventually, sooner rather than later, have to replace this bridge. That'll be kind of a sad thing, because it's beautiful in its geometric perfection. 

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 23: Meeting Claire Hall

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This was a unique high-point on the trip.

Some of you, I hope, may have heard of Claire Hall. She's a county commissioner down in Lincoln County and someone I rather admire. A few years back she wrote a delightful, uniquely-Oregonesque political fantasy called McCallandia, which is an alternative history of of the post-Watergate years. The point of departure was when Gerald Ford was elevated to the vice-presidency; what if, instead of Ford, lawmakers chose our legendary governor, Tom McCall? The story told was full-on Oregon, her read of McCall's personality was flawless, and the writing impressively accomplished. Not only did Ken Kesey make an appearance, but so did James Cloutier's cartoon character Hugh Wetshoe (via illustration). The work was made tour de force by a chapter perfectly pastiching a Rolling Stone article where Hunter S. Thompson went out to the McCall ranch to do some fishing and shooting.

McCallandia is required reading for any of you who want to know why McCall is such a beloved memory here in Oregon. It ought to have taken the state by storm, truly, and I'll go to my grave telling people to get a copy. McCall's legacy not only informs Oregon's environmental laws and legacy it also influenced Claire's career; just like McCall, she followed a career as a reporter into a greater legacy as an elected official doing the very best she can for all she works for.

How could I not admire someone who was inspired by Tom McCall and who made that love of their community real by serving?

A few days previous I messaged her to see if she wouldn't mind saying 'hi' in person and I was delighted to see her say yes; so it was, this day, in Newport, at the Fred Meyer, we met in person over coffee.

I must say I had a fine time getting to know her, as much as the occasion allowed, in person. You people in Lincoln County, you're lucky to have her during these times of great dexterity and Covid and things of that nature. She's smart and bright and kind and I'm just thrilled that anyone who writes that well can be a friend of mine. 

Thanks, Claire. You're one-of-a-kind. 

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary): Part 22: 3,365 Miles To Boston

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The longest road in America has one end in Oregon, in Newport. It goes by many local names across the width of the State: SW 4th Avenue in Ontario, NE Greenwood Avenue in Bend, Main Street in Sweet Home and Lebanon, SE Santiam Blvd in Albany, SW Philomath Blvd in Corvallis, and Main Street again in Philomath. 

When it enters Newport, it becomes East Olive Street before it ends at Hwy 101. If you're in the mind to wander down a long road, though, there's a sign there that invites you to try:

In the interests of symmetry, there's a similar sign at the other end of the road: Kenmore Square, Boston, near Fenway Park, has a sign that will tell you it's 3,365 miles to Newport, Oregon.

We're fair that way in America.

Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) Part 21: Yaquina Head and the Surf

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The thing about driving 101 down the central Oregon Coast ... Lincoln City to Yachats ... is that so much of the beach is visible from the road. It seems less so in other areas;

The stretch of 101 in Tillamook County, for example, after you get past Neahkanie Mountain, Tillamook Bay, and Tillamook dances about inland a few miles. You're still down on the coast, but you feel as though you're inland. Not that it's a bad trip, mind. But there's not really any ocean to look at from the car. Once you pass Neskowin and get south of the Hwy 18 tie-in, bop around in the hills just north of Lincoln City then once you're in L.C. you can see the ocean from nearly the entire road. 

You can glimpse some of the coastal mist near 101 and 18; that's the floodplain of the Salmon River, opening up to the sea. 

Then, after this, there are great stretches of 101 that are within sight and sound of the sea. And once you get along Beverly Beach, just north of the Newport city limits, you get some of the best angles.

That promontory ahead is a point called Yaquina Head and it's basically the north end of the city of Newport, one of my favorite places on earth. They have a cute little neighborhood there and tidepools (not this time, but again) and theres the working lighthouse out there.

And all the breakers. This is another picture I can hear. And so very typical of US 101 in Lincoln County. 

Darkness In Daytime: The Yaquina Bay Bridge

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Here's another view. this one courtesy of Jamie Neal, a member of the Facebook group "Lost In Oregon".

Before I show this one off, it certainly bears mentioning the profoundly dense nature of the wildfire-generated canopy over parts of northwestern Oregon. Smoke from the Beachie Creek and Lionshead fires have been pushed west over Salem and points west and south, as far as Eugene and over to the coast. Also there are now a couple of fires in the Coast Range to contend with, all pumping thick smoke into the region.

The scenes we've seen today via those staccato signals of constant information call to mind the scenes in eastern Washington after Mount Saint Helens erupted: dusk came well before sunset to Salem, and it looked as dark as midnight by 7 PM.

This picture is of the Yaquina Bay Bridge at Newport, on the coast, so if one's even the least bit familiar with Oregon geography, one will know that this is a heck of a long way from the Cascades. But, yesterday afternoon, Newport's iconic bridge seemed to be on another planet.

 It's rather like sunset on Mars during a dust storm.

So that goes, and thank you Jamie for allowing me to post your photo.

[or_liff] The Road To Boston Begins In Newport

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This in over the transom: there is now a sign up on West Olive Street near downtown Newport, down on the Oregon Coast. And people may not know this up to now, but the longest continuous road in America begins here, and doesn't let up until it's gone through 12 states, and three thousand, three hundred and sixty-five miles.

That road is U.S. Highway 20, and after traversing all those states, strikes out across the heart of Oregon from the Idaho border at Ontario, pausing at places with names like Vale, Juntura, Burns, Hines, Brothers (a 'town' that goes on the market now and again), Bend, Sisters, Sweet Home, Lebanon, Albany, Corvallis, Blodgett, Burnt Woods, and finally Newport.

In Oregon it has enough adventure and terrain for the rest of the road, but it's awesome enough to go the rest of the way.

Today, The Oregonian posted a picture of the sign. It reads US 20 East, Boston MA, 3,365 Miles. A nifty picture and a short article are at the end of this link which can be viewed. An invitation to adventure, to tank up and go, or just to dream.

And, very soon, in downtown Boston, it's said, a sign will go up reading US 20 West, Newport OR, 3,365 Miles. 

US 20 is like the Force; it binds the Nation together.

At least the part that goes between Oregon and Massachusetts.