Crabs, Pirates, Aliens
Newport did not disappoint
It started with gray skies and that familiar Pacific Northwest drizzle that politely tells you to go home. But we didn’t. Instead, we loaded up the fat bikes and pointed ourselves toward Newport, where the Yaquina Bay Bridge looked like it had been plucked from a moody detective novel and dropped over steel-colored water. The town smelled like fish and fuel and woodsmoke, and somehow that made it feel real. Stripped of tourists, the waterfront pulsed with working-class grit and quiet defiance. And your retired live-in surfers.
As we rolled into some parts near the Acquarium there were some things that were a bit odd. First, a burst of late-blooming blanket flowers threw color in our faces like summer had forgotten to pack up. Next, we wandered into a pirate village. And I mean full send pirate energy, statues, murals, that glass shop guarded by a wooden buccaneer whose grin said he’d definitely overcharged us for a blown-glass jellyfish. The whole scene teetered on the edge of kitsch but landed squarely in endearing. It was as if the town dared us not to fall for it.
And just when we thought we’d seen it all... aliens. Literal metal extraterrestrials waving from a UFO perched above a crab shack steaming away beside the highway. Because why not? That’s Newport’s vibe. Sea creatures below, space creatures above, and some smoked oysters in the middle.
We closed the loop on the ridge trail, bikes caked in coastal mud, catching a final view of the bridge as the fog peeled back.
It wasn’t a perfect day by any checklist metric, but maybe that’s the point. There was no script, no plan. Just us, a strange little town, and the quiet thrill of letting the story unfold.