Newport, OR - Kaling Me Softly

Have I ever mentioned that this RV is a KALE-FREE ZONE? Nope, well, let me mention it now. No kale here. I realize that no one ever got fat eating kale, I realize that it’s filled with vitamins and antioxidants and folates and polyphenols: all kinds of things you’d want to put into your body but, to get it into your body, you’ve got to get it past the tastebuds. And, there’s the kicker. Yecch. The taste: like grass, the texture: like the scratchy stuff that they used to make crinolines out of. I don’t want to eat crinolines nor grass and thus, no kale will cross this threshold.

And, I bypassed the kale display and reached for the ooey gooey pecan cinnamon roll. I know my priorities. Gary was plenty happy that I had made that choice - he’s no fan of kale either. But, the cinnamon roll - ummm - no pictures here because - well, we ate it so fast that you’d get a picture of an empty plate. But, if I put a picture of that cinnamon roll here you’d be too tempted. So, no picture.

Saturday morning we headed on over to the weekly Farmers Market and that’s where we saw the kale and bought the cinnamon roll. We also bought some leaf lettuce, radishes and a few other vegetables. Wouldn’t want you to think that we eat only cinnamon rolls. Ha ha - sometimes we eat donuts.

Now the serious part of the day - we need money. No Wells Fargo ATM’s on our route for the last 2 weeks. So - let’s go shopping. We get our groceries, go through the line, I stick my VISA card in and - no cash back. Oh, shucks. How come? Oh, yeah, the clerk says, you need a debit card. Oh, yeah, sure. Don’t do this much. I run back into the store for something, anything - a cauliflower, I put in my debit card and get $100. Whoo - eee. Saved.

Sailboats out in the harbor.

Now, on with the day. We’ve got to walk a lot to use up all the calories from that roll so we’d better get started. The Bayfront area of Newport is firstly a working waterfront. Here are the commercial fishermen with all their boats and buckets and clam pots and nets and paraphernalia. Then there are the companies that process the catch that the fishermen bring in. There are two of these within 4 blocks in the Bayfront area. Secondly this is the tourist area of the city: the restaurants, the shoppes, the bars, the Ripley's Believe it of Not, the ICE CREAM shops and the sea lion piers. The Bayfront is filled with activity, especially on a Saturday. Families walking from restaurant to restaurant trying to find something to please everyone. Teens walking around talking with other teens. Tourists standing by the fish filleting table watching their fish being readied for them to take home. And, we were in the midst of it, enjoying the ambiance.

And here are the sea lions. Because the sea lions were flopping up on every working dock in the bay, the people of Newport put out several docks just for them to use as their stage for entertaining the tourists. All they need - 4 floats and they can go 24-7-365 with the shoving, the barking, the teeth-barring and the endless game of musical chairs. There are never enough spots on the rafts, no matter how high they pile themselves, for all of the sea lions who want to ‘rest’ on them to get there. One will launch himself up on the raft and one will fall off the other side. Note the one snarling, baring his teeth and barking at the one who wants up on the dock.

Or one will launch himself up only to find a set of teeth facing him and he backs down back into the water. One will launch himself up over another one and push the other one off into the water. Then there’s the slow moving skooch: one will launch himself up on the raft, skooch in, skooch in and finally the end one on the other side runs out of real estate and skooches into the water. Endlessly. But, funny, they know that these are their docks. They don’t try for the other docks in town where the tourist fishing boats land because they have been chased off of them too many times. They know their place.

But their antics are endlessly entertaining. You keep watching them as them circle trying to get up on the rafts, as they bark and bark at others and as they work to shove newcomers off the rafts. And, they all have a face that only parents could love.

Also along the waterfront are the tourist boats coming in with their fishing haul for the day. They back in, unload the fish where the filleters (is this a word?) go to it and the tourists watch.



Hmmm, let’s see: how much did that fish cost them?

At sunset, we get some wonderful views. We really like this campground - location, location, location.