MIKE AND JESS' TRAVEL DIARY
Oregon Coast Trip
August 2024
For Nix’s and my birthday, we took a week off work to travel the Oregon Coast! We were hoping for tiny beach towns, great seafood for Mike, rugged coastline views, and some fun for Nix and the trip did not dissapoint!
Working our way from North to South on the coast, we started off exploring Pacific City beach and Cape Kiwanda Sand Dune. After parking off the street, we put our name in for a patio table overlooking the beach at Pelican Brewing. Then, we walked the wide beach and headed towards the sand dune connected to the sandbank. The dune was way taller than expected and the loose sand made it quite difficult to climb! Instead of sweating buckets trying to make it to the top, we climbed up about halfway and traversed it towards the coastline where we saw a trail.
After exploring, we headed back to Pelican Brewing for some lunch. The food was overpriced, but given the location, that’s to be expected. The food was perfectly fine. Also to be expected. However, the view was awesome and they are super dog-friendly, so it was perfect.
After lunch, we were back in the car and on our way to the next stop- Neskowin Beach- home of the Cathedral Rock. The beach was really stunning, but did have a ton of dead jellyfish and crabs scattered around, making it less ideal for Nix to explore.
On our way back to the car, we spotted an ice cream truck, so we got a delicious mango sorbet.
At this point, it was getting into late afternoon and we didn’t have much left to hit before we got to our first hotel of the trip, so we stopped at Beachcrest Brewing Company. We had a pizza and a couple beers on their dog-friendly patio and wound down a bit.
We checked in at the Clarion Inn in Depoe Bay and were quite impressed at the view from the room and balcony!
After waking up and packing the car, we hit a few scenic spots in Depoe Bay before getting a truly horrible breakfast burrito at a small beach cafe. Truly. Horrible. Depoe Bay was super cute, though, and we would come back again. Just not to Arch Rock Cafe.
Working our way south, we stopped at a bunch of viewpoints and lookouts until afternoon when it was time for lunch.
For lunch, we stopped at South Beach Fish Market in Newport to get Mike some seafood. It’s a super popular small and casual seafood restaurant. It was quite a warm and sunny day, so we decided to get the food to-go and eat in the car instead of sitting in the sun on one of their outdoor picnic tables. They have a huge and diverse fresh seafood menu, but not much for non-seafood eaters like me. I figured the turkey sandwich (only other option was chicken strips) was a safe bet. Mike went in to order and 40 MINUTES later, he came out with the food. At least it was fresh! (For Mike)…Mike got the crab sandwich and fish and chips. Both were very good. The turkey sandwich was a big mistake. It tasted a bit off… So after a bite or two, I switched to Chex Mix! Mike enjoyed his meal, though!
After exploring Newport a bit, we stopped at some more viewpoints on the way to Cape Perpetua, the last area for the day.
The Cape Perpetua area has a lot of areas to explore the stunning coastline and interesting rock formations.
Our hotel for the night was B Side Motel and RV, a quirky and cool “motel”, though the rooms were nicer than most hotels, where each room is themed. I chose the bright Barbie pink room, of course!
While we were on our way towards the hotel, my stomach started to hurt. Then, the nausea picked up. I was not able to eat for the rest of the night, thanks to the turkey sandie. We knew the food on this trip was not going to be the best we’ve had in our travels, but I didn’t expect to lose weight on the trip because all non-seafood food is inedible or spoiled!
Anyways, the room served us well and thankfully, by morning I felt a bit better. Mike got some fried rice from a chinese takeout in town which also was not worth noting.
Hoping for a better breakfast, we drove into town and stopped at Bandon Coffee Cafe for some breakfast sandwiches and drinks. They were OK, which was a remarkable improvement!
Before leaving Bandon, we wanted to check out the beach. It ended up being our favorite beach of the trip! Nix and I had an absolute blast exploring the crustacean- covered rocks and playing in the waves while Mike took photos with his new camera.
Our final destination for the day was Crescent City, California. On our way down, we hit more viewpoints and beaches and grabbed lunch at Woggy’s Fish and Chips.
We pulled up to our VRBO in Crescent City. Our host had a large property with 10 or so chickens milling about. She gave us the tour and introduced us to the chickens, warning us that the Silkie rooster was a jerk and may come after us. She told us just to kick him if he does…
We unloaded and headed back out for a beer and some food. We got to SeaQuake Brewing, which was super busy from a local festival or something, so we were not able to get a table, but did have a beer standing out in their grass front area.
For food, we ordered take out from a thai place in town, which was pretty decent. We relaxed at the VRBO and watched Olympics.
We had booked two nights in Crescent City to give ourselves time to explore the Redwoods, which neither of us had seen before. Dogs are not allowed on the trails, but we were able to drive some off-road paths and pop out for some pictures. It was SUPER beautiful!
We popped off at a beach as we drove back up from the Redwoods.
We were pretty hungry after the day, so we headed back to give SeaQuake another go. (There’s not much in town.) Thankfully, they weren’t even on a wait, so we got a patio table and had a salad and cheese curds while we relaxed. We didn’t have a packed day, so it was nice to relax.
We grabbed some BBQ takeout and had another Oympics night.
The next morning, it was time to pack up and head up Northeast to Bend. As I was carrying a load out to the car, the dreaded Silkie rooster was seriously eyeing me. Thankfully, I was carrying reusable grocery bags full of snacks and stuff so I wasn’t showing up empty-handed for the inevitable fight. The jerk rooster was standing right in front of the car door, so I slowly approached the vehicle, calmly telling him I didn’t want a fight, but he was not in a negotiating mood. The psycho bird charged me, flew up a foot in the air with his claws out, trying to scratch me! I moved the grocery bag at him just to block since I can’t possibly kick an animal! He fell down, got right back up and did it again!! There was no calming him. I quickly ran to the other side of the car and threw myself and the bags in before shutting the door before his next charge landed. He definitely won that battle. I had ran away and hid from a 5 pound animal. It wasn’t my best moment.
Me and my bruised ego sat in the car until Mike came out with his load. Of course, the rooster didn’t go after him. I told him what happened and he agreed to pack up the rest of the luggage alone while I cowered. Finally, on the last load, the rooster struck again, charging Mike, who very calmly pointed his finger at the rooster, yelled, “No!”, and the freaking bird stopped in it’s tracks and walked away!! Seriously??
On our way to Bend, we stopped for a few waterfalls and nature walks before hitting Crater Lake.
Unfortunately, it is fire season, which we did not take into account, and there was a lot of smoke in the area. Visibility was not great, but the National Park was really beautiful and we were still able to get some gorgeous views.
As we drove out of Crater Lake, the smoke got much worse. It was getting hard to see the road ahead. It honestly felt like we were going to drive right into a giant forest fire. As we got closer to Bend, where we booked a hotel, the air quality did not improve much. We started to worry that we would not be able to experience Bend if we could not safely spend time outside. We looked a bit online and decided it was not worth driving out of the way to go to Bend to only show up, get takeout, and sit in the hotel. So, we cut our losses on the booked hotel and drove home. It was a bit of a bummer to cut the trip short, but will take fires into consideration next time we do try to visit Bend.
So that’s it! The coast was even more beautiful than we expected. Many of the small towns were super cute. And Nix had a blast exploring the beaches and trails! Overall, a success!