Newport Oregon

With the Labor Day holiday comes a 3-day weekend, so I took an additional vacation day to make it a 4-day weekend. We loaded up the 182 and headed Southwest to Newport, Oregon. We were under no time constraint so filed for a leisurely flight down the scenic Oregon Coast via AST-V27-ONP. Lately I've been filing using an origination point outside the Seattle area in order to avoid the added 15-30 minutes of getting out of the KSEA terminal area before being allowed to proceed en-route. So this time I filed from KPLU and flew VFR until over KPLU and then picked up my clearance to KONP. Got an immediate climb to cruise altitude and then direct AST.

South bound along the Oregon Coast. The prop blades in
the photo are an annoying side effect of HD cameras.

Flying along the coast offers spectacular sites and the chance to see some marine wildlife. It also affords a nice off airport landing site if necessary, namely the beach. I'll take the beach in an emergency over the heavily forested areas a few miles inland down the coast of Oregon and Washington.

After landing at KONP, I had arranged for Enterprise to drop off some 4-wheel transportation so that we could explore the area from the ground. The main attractions are the Oregon Aquarium, Nye Beach, The Historic district and numerous nearby light houses.

One of the goals this weekend was to venture into California by taking a day drip on Saturday or Sunday, but dense fog from Crescent City and South prevented that. I settled on the hour flight to Gold Beach (4S1) to check out the river jet boats and to see what nuggets this tiny inlet city had to offer. Besides the jet boat office, the 50's diner, a steak house, and a few gift shops. Not much happening in Gold Beach. The exciting part of the flight to 4S1 was negotiating the high winds at the airport. Just prior to landing the automated weather was reporting 20 KTS with gusts to 30 KTS. Though the wind was almost right down the runway, it made for a wild ride coming in over the beach. Reminded me of watching some of the landings on Flying Wild Alaska minus the snow.

On Final Runway 34 (4S1)