The day started out rater cloudy and ominous looking. We made breakfast and headed for Yaquina Head Lighthouse. We arrived 15 minutes before the lighthouse opened and were given a personal tour of the lighthouse by the maintenance man (although we were not allowed to go upstairs). He was quite passionate and we appreciated his knowledge. He even told us about the local “whale rock”, a rock that many tourist decided was a whale and that they were instructed to allow them to think so. We met some local triathletes running on the hill by the lighthouse and they advised us to stop a the amazing bike shop in Newport, with a lounge, laundry and shower facilities for touring cyclists.
We also made a stop to check out the warm visitor’s centre and had a good chat with the staff there, who were quite interested in our trip. The weather continued to be cold, cloudy and damp, so we made a quick ride into Newport to the bike shop (Bikes Newport, 150 NW 6th Street (541) 265-9917, signed off the bike route).
We did laundry at the bike shop while they checked the tightness of our new cassettes from Astoria. They had a nice setup and we hung out there for a couple of hours.
From there, we decided to call it a short day and stop at South Beach State Parks just south of town as it was starting to rain.
First, we headed the the University of Oregon Marine Science Centre. It was a really neat (and free) science area about the local marine life. They had touch tanks and aquariums…very cool.
We were pretty tired and headed to the park after a quick stop to resupply. When we got to the park it was starting to rain but they had a really nice hospitality centre where they did the yurt registration. We went in despite the sign “no yurts available” being displayed and asked if there were any yurts available by chance to the volunteer behind the desk.It was warm and dry in the centre and they had a couch so we were in no rush. She had a long look at the reservation list and found a couple that apparently were empty. She consulted her supervisor, then looked at the list, then they chatted…it was finally decided that yes they did have a yurt available. They called it the “honeymoon yurt” because it was up on a hill by itself, and we had lucked out as they had a cancellation the night before for the whole weekend. After thanking the ladies we headed up the hill. It was super nice and we got all warm and dry. We later borrowed a board game from the welcome centre (note to self…Trivial Pursuit from the 80s is not a good choice).
Later in the evening, Adam returned from his shower saying there was a cyclist camping in the hiker-biker area. It was pouring rain so we decided to invite them to our yurt. I headed down to invite her up to our yurt. We met Melanie from Bellingham, WA. She was headed out touring for a year down to Los Angeles and around the world. We had a great chat and she got dried out a bit. We vowed to share a yurt the next night at JM Honeyman State Park. If only we could find one more cyclist…
Trip Around The World 
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