And on the Ninth Day, Vacation

We went to Newport (mid-coast of Oregon) for the night, to see the son of Anne's college roommate perform with the All-American Young Boy's Choir. We stayed the night after at the Little Creek Cove Hotel -- a wonderful setup where people buy condominiums but have them rented out as hotel rooms when they aren't staying there. So it's like a homey kitchenette hotel, right on the water. Well, since all the beaches in Oregon are public, right next to the beach.

Will, Molly and I walked up to the top of the Yaquina Head Lighthouse (the tallest lighthouse in Oregon, built in 1873). This involved a 45 minute wait in line (they only let about 10 people into the lighthouse at once) and then a climb up 90+ stairs to the lamp -- still using the original Fresnel lens. Five minutes there, each person perched one at a time at the top of an additional 6 step stairway (which puts you eye to eye with the base of the lamp) to briefly glance at the view, and then back down to the main floor. I found the climb up heart-thuddingly frightening, the terror of the going up narrow open-tread spiral stairs (about which I have a specific phobia) worsened by fear that I'd have to comfort an overwrought child (both of them were sobered, but brave about the climb).

Ate local rockfish fish-and-chips (twice) and pan-fried local oysters, so I had a taste of the coast. Today was one of those picture postcard days of sun, breeze and warm, and it was hard to leave the ocean, but we did. We had to get back to The Porch, of course.