Florence, Oregon

Our last stop on the Oregon Coast was a week at Woahink Lake RV Resort just south of Florence. It is a very nice RV park with hedges between the roomy sites for privacy. It is one of the nicer parks we've stayed in.

Our first day we headed to the Heceda Head Lighthouse with Brad and Martha. Our friends John and Janie were docents at this lighthouse several years ago, and told us how beautiful it was. They were sure right.

Here's a view of the ocean from the path heading up to the lighthouse.

And our first glimpse of the lighthouse from the path.

And, here we are up close. The entire lighthouse was rebuilt and refurbished about ten years ago and looks great.

We learned that a few of the lighthouses along the Oregon Coast remain lit for boaters to use as reference points. This is one of them. The lens in most of the many lighthouses along the coast have lenses that came from France. Heceda Head is the only lighthouse with a lens made in England, and is the largest English lens of its type in the US. It is also the brightest light on the Oregon Coast.

The view from the top is gorgeous!!

From the lighthouse we headed to the Strawberry Hill Wayside just a bit further north. I had read that there were some tide pools at low tide, and was hoping to see more creatures. The path down to the beach wasn't too bad to navigate.

Sea star in one of the pools

Small crab about the size of a golf ball

I'm not sure what these purple things were, but they were cool

Another Sea Star clinging to the side of the rocks

I was playing tag with the tide waters to get the above picture

There is about a 40 mile long and 1.5 mile wide stretch along the Oregon Coast that has massive sand dunes. It is called the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, and is one of the largest expanses of temperate coastal sand dunes in the world. As we got close to Florence on our drive down, this was our first glimpse of the dunes.

The RV park we are staying at has direct access to the dunes, so there are lots of people staying here with ATVs. We walked up the road to see the dunes behind us. Here are those views. Lots of sand in every direction!

As you can imagine, several companies rent ATVs in this area. Sandland Adventures has a 24 passenger vehicle that takes customers out on a one hour tour of the dunes for only $20 per person. That sounded like fun, so the four of us signed up. Two of them went out. Here's the one we weren't on.

Here's the other buggy with a large fir tree growing in the sand

Our driver gave us some facts about the area. There are bear, black tailed deer, eagles, cougars and bobcats living in the dunes. We saw a black tailed deer similar to the one below grazing on the grass along the side of a trail. We've seen lots of white tailed deer living in Wisconsin, but this was the first black tailed deer.

Dunes in the rec area can get as high as 500 feet. This one was about 100 feet. It was a bit of a thrill coming down it. 

I was very surprised how much vegetation grows among the dunes. There are five tree islands. This one had a small pond near the bottom. With 80 inches of annual rain, these ponds get quite big during the winter and spring months.  

In years past, a non-native grass was introduced to the dunes area to try and keep the sand from blowing into the river. Later they learned the sand at the bar wasn't coming from the dunes, but was coming in from the ocean. In the meantime, the invasive grasses were taking over the dunes. Conservationists are now working hard to figure out how to undo the damage.

This unusual tree/bush was growing at Sandland Adventures. It looked like an upside down evergreen tree.

We went golfing with Brad and Martha at Forest Hills Golf Course in Reedsport. It was a beautiful day. The jackets came off shortly after starting play.

There were a number of beautiful chainsaw carved statues throughout the course. The manager told us that the course was opened 60 years ago, and one of the original members carved all of the sculptures and signs. Amazing!!

We leave Oregon tomorrow and head to the Redwoods National Park area in northwestern California. More adventures ahead!

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!