Newport Day 6
Bike Ride
The forecast for today was accurate; bright & sunny. We took advantage of the weather, as rain is in the forecast, and took the bikes out for a spin today. We rode the gravel bikes down 101 for about 4 miles to South Beach State Park. There we accessed a paved bike trail that goes into South Jetty and continued on to the aquarium area and explored around a bit. The aquarium is on the sourh end of the bridge and to the east of 101. The area also includes the NOAA Headquarters, the OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center, a marina and large RV park, a public fishing dock, and the Rogue Brewery. In additionn there are several small businesses located in what used to be a self storage facility.
It was interesting to learn more about NOAA, the Newport headquarters is the only NOAA homeport between Alaska and San Diego.
While in this area, we discovered a small nature trail that is bike friendly and several bike trails wandering throughout the area.
The Bridge
The historic Yaquina Bay Bridge into Newport was interesting on a bike. You have to ride on the sidewalk area which is quite narrow with heavy traffic going by at highway speeds. We crossed the bridge without incident and proceeded into Newport.
Nye Beach
Historical Nye Beach District is full of small restaurants, galleries, bakeries and ice cream stores. We stopped at a small bakery that we had been to before. Of course things are different with the pandemic situation. It took a bit of question and answer to determine what they had and what we wanted. We also each grabbed a slice of pizza since it was now after 1:00 PM and needed some food before heading back
As we were leaving, the weather had turned and our bright sunny day had now turned to rain in a mater of about 20 minutes. We goat back to the trailer without much problem, it was a misty rain.
Our ride amounted to about 20 miles with lots of stops and exploring. It was nice to be on the bikes instead of lugging around in the truck.