Last week I was once again on the road. This time Andrew and I were off to the beach, Newport, Oregon. We arrived before check-in time at our hotel, so Andrew took advantage and got in a little fishing from the municipal pier, where there was a great view of the Yaquina Bay Bridge.
Growing along the pier were these rose bushes, a passerby saw me photographing them and called them Sitka roses. Looking up that name led to Rosa rugosa...
I've not a clue of that ID is correct or not, but the hips were fabulous.
We stopped in Corvallis, Oregon on the way out to the beach. Andrew wanted to visit a
bookstore and I (naturally) took advantage of the stop to visit a
nursery, where I spied an unusual plant. It was labeled as Talinum hybrid #1. The only Talinum I've grown before is
Talinum paniculatum, or Jewels-of-Opar. This plant had succulent leaves (it was also only $3.99 and hardy to Zone 6), how interesting. There were long stems that I paid zero attention to thinking they were spent blooms gone to seed, Ha, no. Imagine my surprise when I got back to the car and the plant had started to bloom in the heat.
We eventually checked in to our hotel and enjoyed a lovely ocean sunset.
The next morning it was beach time! I laughed at the number of benches on our way down to the beach, but actually used one on our way back up. I had to take a seat to clean the globs of sand off my jeans, feet and flip flops. I'd had a bit of a "quick-sand" like experience.
My sinking further and further into the sand occurred while I was photographing these anemone ... totally worth it, I love them!
These freaky things, not so much.
The rocks where I was photographing, and our hotel in the background.
There were clear bits of jelly and rusty bits too, I liked the rusty bits.
Sand texture worthy of tile...
Blue!
Later that day (while Andrew fished the jetty), I headed south to Waldport, Oregon, to visit
Thompson's Nursery (future blog post), en-route I happened to spot a community garden. I love community gardens!
Seashore’s JOY Garden was the name, and it was the huge cordylines that first caught my eye. They grow like tree-sized weeds on the Oregon coast.
It wasn't until I'd parked that I spotted the agaves...
Of course I had to laugh at the green lawn and sprinkler, not what you expect to see with agaves, right?
Lots-o-pups...
There was another in the opposite corner.
Community gardens always have such personality...
There was a box of pears just beyond my photo.
And so many unripe tomatoes.
This material! It was soft and fluid, but also clearly made of metal.
I've never seen a duck figurehead on boat before. No doubt the kids have fun with this.
And the bear... I'm sure they love the bear.
When we visited Newport
back in 2018 I spotted a large agave south of town off the 101. As I was driving the area on this trip I was scanning for it. That agave was gone, but there was a smaller one in its place.
Here's a photo from that 2018 visit.
At some point in the last 7 years the original plant bloomed, dried up, and this pup (I assume?) had grown up to take it's place.
There were several smaller pups coming up nearby. I counted at least six. It was odd though, that they were so far away from each other, rather than in a clump. Had someone moved them? Were they seeds that sprouted? Bulbils?
Looking at the dried bloom stalk I realized the end (the part where the blooms had been) was missing. Maybe that pointed to bulbil harvesting? Nope, looking around I found it where it must have fallen and eventually broke off, buried in the conifer growing behind the agaves. It had been there long enough the confer branches were growing around it.
The rescued skeleton.
The next day we headed up to explore the
Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area (yes, that's really what it's called—
designated by Congress). Unbeknownst to us it was
National Public Lands Day which meant free admission and the opportunity to volunteer. I'll admit we did not do any volunteer work, but I did see folks planting flats of plants which was wonderful.
The Yaquina Head Lighthouse is Oregon's tallest at 93 ft tall, it was first lit on August 20, 1873.
After that we explored the park around the closed Yaquina Bay Lighthouse (about five miles south) and Andrew did a little carving while I read. He made a vase!
I was enjoying the way the breeze moved the vase contents so I took a video...
That caused a vase redesign...
Later we found a spot to watch the bay traffic for a bit and enjoy the sun, good thing too because an hour or so after we arrived back at our hotel we watched from the balcony as dense fog rolled in and hid the ocean view and the last sunset of the trip... but not before we spotted whales! So really, we couldn't complain.
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