May 5th - Sightseeing South

No rain today, except for a few drizzles while we were driving south this morning.

I went up and had breakfast with the "campers" this morning. This weekends campers are all adults. Rather than serving everyone family style there was a buffet line. We had scrambled eggs, fried (cubed) potatoes, LOTS of bacon, several different types of melon, strawberries, cinnamon rolls and I'm sure there was also cereal.

After breakfast I drove up to Rockaway Beach this morning, about a mile north of here, looking for a place to get a haircut. Couldn't find a barbershop so I drove south down to Garibaldi, about 4 miles from here. Got my hair cut at Tami's Barbershop. $10 for a haircut and she trimmed my beard. I gave her a $5 tip. Tami and her husband have lived in the area for 17 years. She was quite informative.

Today there was a tsunami evacuation drill for many communities along the coast. Other than seeing a lot of fire department personnel and police officers along the road I don't know what other things happened.

After the haircut I drove back to camp, picked up Kathy and we headed south. We drove down to Depoe Bay, about 70 miles south of here, to watch for whales. On the way we stopped at J's and had fish and chips and clam strips for lunch. We spent about 3 hours watching for whales. We saw one blow a couple of times within the first 10 minutes and then it was pretty slow until the last hour. We were able to track a group of three or four for over a mile. Several times we were able to see their backs as they came up to breathe. It was great.

On the way home we stopped at the Fishermans Korner Restaurant. I had fish and a salad and Kathy had a bowl of clam chowder. The food was great.

 The restaurant was out at the harbor.

 There are plaques along the railing in memory of local people who have died.

 We drove on past the camp, back up to Rockaway Beach. We wanted to check it out a little more. The buildings in the foreground are on the main street. The buildings in the background, no doubt multi-million dollar summer homes, are perched on the hillside; and I do mean perched.

 Another photo of Rockaway Beach's main street shops.

 These are the twin rocks when viewed from Rockaway Beach. We can't see the arch from the beach in front of the camp. We thought they were two solid rocks.

After walking up and down the main street a little we went out and set on a bench at the edge of the sand, just to watch the ocean. A couple who were standing down the way from us came over and asked it we saw the whales. We had not seen them. There were at least two of them that we watched blow many times as they made their way north along the coast. The couple saw one of them come out of the water enough to see its back. While we were watching them we only saw them blow as they came up for air.

We had a great day. Good night and may God bless you and yours.