L tasked me with posting the pics from the rest of our trip to the coast. Here is a panorama of the beach we were surfing on (called Agate Beach). If you look closely you can see a bird that was flying from the right side of the panorama to the left side - as a result he appears 3 times in the series of pictures that make up the panorama.
And here is L getting pumped for the surfing:
So a little explanation of things in Oregon. I have been backpacking many times, so my definition of "camping" is a small backpacking tent in the middle of a trail in the foothills. In Oregon, since it isn't so oppressively hot all summer, camping is a common summertime activity, but not camping like I thought of camping. Oh no, they are going CAMPING. Huge RVs, Dish Network, Hot Showers and bathrooms nearby, and the guy next to us had a propane flamethrower to start his fire - wet wood isn't going to get that man down. Needless to say, we rolled into our campground at South Beach state park and set up our little tent and were immediately overshadowed by all the folks who were there in full "camp" gear - everyone has a camper/trailer/pop-up/tow-behind of some sort. And we had a tiny little backpacking tent. If I were that kind of person, I would have felt a bit of an assault on my manliness, especially after being unable to start a fire with the wood we had (L always wants a fire, we never take our own wood, campgrounds have no kindling/starter so there is no way we are going to have a fire, BUT she still insists and I still attempt). But I'm not that kind of person, so I just failed at making a fire. After seeing the other folks' calm in the middle of the storm (literally, it rained one day) while tucked neatly in their RVs or campers - we want one.
Moving on from our campground and surfing, we awoke every morning to the barking of thousands of sea lions and took it upon ourselves one day to go find out where they were. Here is a jetty in Newport (the closest city to where we camped & where we surfed) - if you look close, you can see the sea lions dotting it. There were a lot of them, and the sign said they weigh about 800-1000 pounds each. And yes, they are quite loud.
Here is a close-up of a couple of the sea lions, they really are a lot like dogs - these two are barking at each other because the one on the bottom started moving and woke up the one on top of the frame.
They are kinda cute though. Freaking enormous, but kinda cute.
This sea lion has some kind of net/line tied around his neck cutting into it. It isn't fatal or anything (the sea lion has been living with it for 2 years), but they can't remove it because he is to skiddish and they don't want to shoot him with a tranquilizer, because he might drown underwater from the tranq before they can get him up to remove it. It looks bad, but the sea lion was just as loud as the others and seemed to be fine.
Newport is a working fishery, though, and the sea lions are there just hanging out for excess fish (I assume). Here is one of the fish boats we had access enough to take pictures of:
We stopped in this little cafe one of the rainy days and had some coffee and played cards. Had a conversation with a guy from Australia who was taking 2 months of holiday in America to try and see the country. Started in San Francisco and was going to end up in New York City.
A final shot from Newport, the bridge that spans the mouth of the harbor - it was quite pretty.
