The Newport Chocolate Factory and Oregon Flowers

 The Oregon coast offers a wet, temperate environment that must be wonderful for growing flowers. We were amazed at the variety and color of the flowers we saw in the RV parks and along the road.

 Rick is not sure what these are called, but they were beautiful. They must be easy to grow since we saw them used as grown cover, but they were sure nice to see.

 Hydrangeas must be the flowering plant of choice as we saw them everywhere. We believe the climate must really encourage these.

 We also learned that the color of the flowers depend on the acidity of the soil. pH levels under 6 (acid soil) produces bluish color flowers, while alkaline (pH over 6) will yield pinkish flowers. We saw only blue to very dark blue flowers, so we believe the solid must be highly acidic.

 Flowers are great, but chocolate is better, according to Orinda. Fortunately, there was a great chocolate factory in Newport and it was definitely calling Orinda's name.

 The factory makes their own chocolates of all description. Here, we watched as the workers melted the chocolate and created:

 All of these great goodies. We had a hard time deciding what chocolate to buy and the free samples really did not help, since they all tasted great, but finally, we made our decision.

A couple of chocolate covered almonds, macadamia nuts, and chocolate turtles we selected and made the trip back to the coach -- at least most of them did. Looks like one of the macadamia nut chocolates didn't quite make it all the way back -- and was it ever good!