{"id":30968,"date":"2012-05-08T08:10:47","date_gmt":"2012-05-08T15:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=30968"},"modified":"2012-05-07T09:20:28","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T16:20:28","slug":"beach-comber-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=30968","title":{"rendered":"Beach Comber"},"content":{"rendered":"

My boyfriend is the hardest person to shop for. Buying gifts is often difficult and this year for his birthday I decided to skip the torture of trying to shop and just take him out of town for a surprise adventure. After our successful purchase of a\u00a0Groupon vacation deal<\/a>, I tried it again and got a fantastic price on an oceanfront room at the beach. The last trip to the beach was for our anniversary last year and sadly, I’d gotten\u00a0food poisoning<\/a>\u00a0and couldn’t enjoy it.\u00a0I told Michael to pack typical Oregon clothing and we hit the road Saturday morning after I went to the gym (and he went for a bike ride).<\/p>\n

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The destination: Newport Beach. We arrived to a rather gray welcoming but it wasn’t too cold and it wasn’t raining, so I was happy.<\/p>\n

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We stayed at the Best Western Agate Inn right on the beach. The deal I bought included a “picnic” basket with two wine glasses, a bottle opener, an insulated bag, a wine topper and a bottle of wine. We immediately opened the wine and enjoyed a leisurely glass before heading down to the beach for a walk.<\/p>\n

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Agate Beach was really nice, quiet and smaller than some of the other Oregon Coast beaches. Sadly, I did not find any agates.<\/p>\n

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We walked back to the hotel and then decided to go into Newport in the “old town” area. It was a touristy boardwalk with piers that had views of the massive bridge.<\/p>\n

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We did some window shopping and then got totally sidetracked by the California Sea Lions that were giving quite the show in the water. There was a group of them lounging in the sun on a wood platform. One of them looked like it weighed about 800 pounds–he was an old one. There were a few other big ones, not as big as him, and then some smallers one that were playing in the water.<\/p>\n

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The little Sea Lions gave everyone a show, and the big ones bellowed their bark that echoed throughout the downtown area. Crowds were forming to watch the free show. I have to admit, the Sea Lions were probably my favorite part of the weekend. They were so cute and playful.<\/p>\n

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The little one was frolicking, splashing, doing acrobatics and then would kiss one of the other lions. What beautiful and graceful creatures.<\/p>\n

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After the sea lion show, we headed up the street to the Rogue Brewery<\/a> for dinner. It was one of the destinations I had planned for the weekend and I’m glad we were able to go. I can’t say that I am familiar with the Rogue beers, but after my tasting on Saturday night, I love them!<\/p>\n

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THE BEERS<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

Morimoto Pilsner:<\/strong> it was summery and light, like lavender perfume.<\/p>\n

Chipotle Ale:<\/strong> smokey finish. We both loved this one. It did not taste like peppers. I want to find bottles of this one. Damn, it was good.<\/p>\n

Juniper Pale Ale:<\/strong> smelled like a lemon, smooth, nothing very distinctive about it.<\/p>\n

Brutal IPA:<\/strong> tasted like orange, smooth finish, not bitter.<\/p>\n

Double Dead Guy:<\/strong> tasted like alcohol, candy and had a slight coffee finish to it.<\/p>\n

New Crusty Triple IPA:<\/strong> syrupy and very hoppy.<\/p>\n

Michael and I decided to split a few things for dinner. The first was the “bleu balls”– three meatballs made of a local, organic beef with blue cheese baked inside the meatballs and then scattered around the plate. The blue cheese went perfectly with it. I had 1.5 meatballs (kind of the perfect amount).<\/p>\n

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Next was the halibut fish and chips. We split that, thankfully. It was pretty big. We each had 1.5 of the fillet and shared the fries. I have fish n’ chips about once or twice a year–and usually at the beach. It’s not something I crave very frequently and giving in annually is about right for me.<\/p>\n

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Michael was still hungry, so he ordered the black bean dip with freshly made tortilla chips. I munched on a little bit of it but I was pretty full after the dinner and the beer.<\/p>\n

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We finished up our beers and then decided to do the most logical<\/em>\u00a0thing while slightly drunk! Go hiking. \ud83d\ude1b<\/p>\n

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Okay. It wasn’t really<\/em>\u00a0hiking. We went to the lighthouse park on the hill not far from downtown Newport, and then walked down the trail to the beach. There was a trail through the trees and brush, and then stairs down to the beach. I admit, my legs were screaming at me after working out that morning and already walking on the beach!<\/p>\n

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We walked out toward the jetty. That particular beach was almost like Mars–quiet, empty except for us, with big sand dunes. It was also really windy. Michael and I didn’t make it very far.<\/p>\n

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Walking for about 20 minutes or so, then getting to the jetty to find it gated off, we turned around and headed back up the beach to the stairs.<\/p>\n

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It was a really nice evening, romantic and busy at the same time, and I fell asleep to the deafening sound of the ocean waves rolling into the shore. I truly think that if I listened to a CD of roaring waves every night, I’d never suffer from insomnia.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: What is your favorite beach activity?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My boyfriend is the hardest person to shop for. Buying gifts is often difficult and this year for his birthday I decided to skip the torture of trying to shop and just take him out of town for a surprise adventure. After our successful purchase of a\u00a0Groupon vacation deal, I tried it again and got […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,55,315,85,104,107,634,2559,169,181,5167,2806,5170,219,254,291,2932],"tags":[5931,8775,5400,387,8589,5933,8770,522,8786,8674,2555,5930,8771,5934,5932,3080,5935,3712,2936,8763],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30968"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30968"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31040,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30968\/revisions\/31040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}