A surprising discovery about Oregon is that they have full service gas stations. For those young whipper-snappers that haven’t experienced this, a full service gas station is a gas station with an attendant who pumps your gas and cleans your windshield and even checks your oil. It took Marla and I two different gas stations to stop being surprised when someone came up to our car and started pumping gas.
On our way out of Winchester Bay, a town near where we camped at the Umpqua Lighthouse State Park, we had an exceptionally friendly and chatty gas station attendant who wasn’t completely toothless, maybe more “tooth-lite”. He wanted to know what we were up to and where we were headed.
“Do you like clam chowder?”, he asked.
“You gotta go to this place in Newport–it’s on the way to Tillamook. It’s the best damn chowder I’ve ever had in my life.”
Well, how do you ignore that? Those of you that know my challenges with lactose might understand how I would try to ignore that, but I do like the idea of pursing the “best damn chowder”. I would just have to (mostly) experience it vicariously through Marla.
Marla takes her responsibility as my dairy proxy very seriously and I am super grateful. As it turns out, it was quite amazing (I had a few bites), and I would highly recommend it. So if you find yourself in the vicinity of Newport, Oregon, and are looking for some damn good chowder, check out The Fish Peddler.
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