The Newport Bayfront

As we leave Yaquina Bay Lighthouse and State Park, we pass under the most photographed bridge on the Oregon coast.

The Yaquina Bay Bridge is another architectural achievement by  C. B. McCullough. (visittheoregoncoast.com)

Our destination is the bustling, salty, tourist-populated Bayfront of Newport.

According to visittheoregoncoast.com, Newport is home to the West Coast’s largest commercial fishing fleet.

Trawlers set out and return to unload their catch.

Fish-processing plants and canneries line the street.

And harbor seals and barking sea lions bask along the docks looking for fish scraps.

A little farther out the more adventurous wait on this rock and check out the returning fishing trawlers.

You could definitely nickname this outcropping Seal Rock, but then folks would confuse it with the small town south of Newport with the same name.

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According to the Lincoln County Historical Society plaque at Seal Rock State Park off Highway 101, J. Brassfield set up a post office and ran a hotel here in 1890. The town received its name because of the seal population living on the rocks.

The views of the ocean and rocks of the Oregon coast from this wayside are just too awesome for me not to share them with you.

Notice how this picture from the south loses the blue sky.