On May 1, 2019 I headed down to Newport, OR from Olympia WA where I had been for the last four months on a combination – House Sitting job/van build project. In Newport, I’d be pet sitting three dogs and taking care of a house right on Yaquina Bay and when I could, I was hoping to complete some projects on the van.
I’d been to Newport twice before. The first time was back in 2013 when I began blogging under LifeWithLarry while traveling in a 1978 VW Bus and the second time was this past December to spend Christmas with the very people I’d be working for now. How I met them is an interesting story.
When Lexie was diagnosed with Mast Cell Cancer and given three months to live, I wanted to make her remaining time here as wonderful as I could. One thing she loved to do was ride the motorcycle with me. I had sold my bike shortly after moving to Vermont in preparation of going sailing around the world. So I went out and bought a used motorcycle so I could take her for rides as much as possible while she underwent the multiple operations, chemo and radiation therapy. It wasn’t long after I bought the bike that I saw someone post in a motorcycle forum I belonged to, that they were having trouble with their GPS and they had just set out on a Cross Country ride. I reached out to them and told them that I had the identical unit and would send it to them as I didn’t need it.They would just need to mail it back when done. Instead, they bought a new one and we made plans for them to come stay with Lexie and I in Vermont as they were coming my way – from Newport, OR!
So now here I am, Lexie is gone, but I am back on the very street she and I were back in 2013. Looking out at the Sea Lions barking away and walking on the beach we walked on. In fact, the entire trip down here was one long journey back in time, only we were headed north up the coast to the same house I had just come from for those folks in Olympia, I had met on our trip in the VW back in 2013. It truly was like walking down Memory Lane.
If you get a chance to stop in Newport, OR I highly recommend it. It is both a touristy ocean village and a working fishing village. Living here for a month, watching the fishing and sailboats come in and out of the harbor was wonderful. Though not everything was wonderful. I witnessed over the radio, a dramatic rescue of a man over board 20 miles out to sea. A man, on his boat alone, fell overboard and his boat continued on without him. He had no life jacket, but somehow managed to grab his VHF radio as he went over and spent over 20 minutes in the cold Pacific Ocean treading water waiting for someone to find him as he talked to the Coast Guard over the VHF.
