2026 Newport Visit (Seafood and Wine Festival)
(2/19/2026 - 2/23/2026)
2026 Newport Visit (Seafood and Wine Festival)(2/19/2026 - 2/23/2026)
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On 2/19/2026 Brian and Katherine flew from Austin to Portland, Oregon to drive to Newport, Oregon to see family, friends, and go to the Newport Seafood and Wine Festival. Click on any picture for the very highest quality original.
We start most of our adventures parking at the Austin Airport. Below is a picture of our car to remember where we parked. Yes, we are getting old.
In Newport, we stayed at "The Allred Hotel", in room 237. Picture below is just to help me remember that. :-)
Below is the front entrance of "Allred Hotel":
A picture (not mine) of the inside room we stayed in:
The room had a small kitchenette:
Below is a picture from our Allred room's balcony the next morning.
Below is a panorama taken from the same spot. There is some odd "stitching" artifacts in the cars and waves, just ignore those to get the vibe of the view.
The coffee available in the hotel room wasn't Katherine's favorite. I was out running errands (fixing a banking issue in a physical branch) so I stopped at Fred Meyer for supplies. Katherine asked for "Cold Brew" so I sent a picture of the selection. She made a choice.
Next stop on my errands was "White Rabbit Coffee" (see picture below) to get a pour over for myself and Katherine. What I noticed was there were 11 people hanging out in the White Rabbit coffee place, and 7 people (out of 11) were wearing stocking hats. Inside a building. Including the stoned hippy girl making the coffee. Other names for "stocking hat" are "beanie", or "wooly hat". Karl said these are called "toque" (pronounced "tuke") in Canada.
We met up with Karl, Tam, and Brady at Karl/Tam's condo which is at 1306 S Pine St, Newport, Oregon. Picture below of their condo in Newport. What the REVERSE direction shows is views of the Newport Harbor, the docks with boats, and sea lions (hanging out on the docks). Click on the address link earlier in this paragraph to use Google Streetview to look around.
We walked down to "Clearwater restaurant" (which is on the old Newport docks) with the group on Friday night and had a nice dinner there.
So the next day, Katherine and I went to the "Newport Seafood and Wine Festival" on Saturday. Below is a picture I took as we walked towards the entrance. The bridge is called the "Yaquina Bay Bridge".
Karen bought us our tickets and a "commemorative wine glass". We bought holders to hang the wine glass around our necks, LOL.
Karl Dohan, Tamara Dohan, and Brady Nilsen met up with us. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of Tam the whole trip.
Picture (not mine) of Tam:
Below from left to right: Brian (me), Bruce Wilson, Katherine Chung (in front with crab mac-n-cheese), Kip Linder, Gail, Karen Linder (Brian's 1st cousin).
Later than night I visited Kip and Karen at the Wilson's Crabbin Cabin. For more info about the Crabbin Cabin click here. It's been in our extended family for 56 years, and growing up I spent a lot of time staying here with my family and playing at the beach near here.
The 3 pictures below deserve some explanation, but it's boring. :-) Growing up, I played a lot at the location pictured below called "Jump Off Joe". I have been here hundreds of times throughout my 58 year life. When I was 15 years old, a land developer tried to build a multi-story condo here, but nobody ever moved in. The condo started collapsing into the ocean before it was finished. What remained for the next 44 years is the foundation of that ill fated development attempt. I like to visit and document this every few years, like here (2006), and here (2016), and I took one of my favorite pictures of Katherine in 2016 standing here. Now I am in 2026 and there is a HUGE erosion that occurred, see below... the first picture is facing south.
The picture below is the main erosion that is totally new to me. After 44 years, the ill fated condo parking lot is no longer flat and connected to the "mainland". A large crevasse has opened up!
Here I'm facing north at Jump Off Joe.
Later that day we say goodbye to Karl, Tam, and Brady and drive back to Portland (for our flight out the next day). But we had time so I drove up the Oregon coast to check out some locations I knew of 40 years ago. Below is the parking lot near the "Devil's Punchbowl" with a "Mo's Clam Chowder" (the blue building).
I took several pictures of the Devil's Punchbowl. I'm not sure why, it's documented pretty well online, LOL. :-)
Another of my photos of the Devil's Punchbowl:
Another of my photos of the Devil's Punchbowl:
Below I'm facing north very near the Devil's Punchbowl (same parking lot). What I like about this photo is it's a good example of the Oregon coast. The coast is very rugged, it is often overcast, and there are few people. But if you look very closely (click on the photo below for a larger version) there is one couple sitting on the beach (up near the cliffs) hanging out.
That night we arrive at our hotel in Portland. We stayed at "Kimpton Riverplace Hotel" in Portland. The panorama below is taken from our hotel room window.
Another photo from our room window.
A quick picture of the main room of our suite. That's an actual, real, wood fire place! I couldn't believe it.
We lit a fire in the fireplace (see the matches on the floor next to the paper plates we used as "kindling").
The bedroom of our suite.
Just for completeness, the bathroom. There is a shower next to the tub off to the left.
This last photo is from 10 years earlier, but you see these "legal cannabis" billboards driving on Interstate 5 and other places. It's an amazing change to Oregon from when I grew up. Marijuana was always available, but underground and illegal.
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