CAPE PERPETUA SCENIC AREA

Wednesday, May 30 – We visited Cape Perpetua this morning and highly recommend this area to anyone visiting the Oregon Coast.

It is absolutely beautiful. The Cape encompasses 2,700 acres of coastal habitat, offers 26 miles of hiking trails, and has a visitor's center.

One of the hiking trails.

Captain James Cook discovered Cape Perpetua. Why name it Cape Perpetua you ask? Perhaps because on March 7, the day he first sighted the headland is the holy day of Saint Perpetua – OR - was it because the cape was in "perpetual" sight? No one knows for sure.

Marsha enjoying the view.

You are able to drive to the top of Cape Perpetua Headland which is the highest viewpoint accessible by car on the Oregon Coast – over 800 feet above the rugged coast. It provides views of 70 miles of coastline and 37 miles out to sea. Today was very clear and I believe we could see these distances.

We hiked the Captain Cook Trail to visit the tidepools, Cape Cove Beach, Devil's Churn, Perpetua Overlook, Good Fortune Cove and Spouting Horn. The trail is accessible by car with many pull-outs, but it is an easy hike and we enjoyed the exercise. It's exciting to walk down on the rocks where the waves are breaking and throwing spray in the air. The tide was coming in so we were able to see some pretty exciting sights.

Devil's Churn.

Good Fortune Cove

Spouting Horn...it wasn't high tide yet, so no spouting could be seen.

We stopped at the Heceta Head Lighthouse about 12 miles north of Florence, OR. It sits 205 feet above the ocean and rises 56 feet above the ground. The automated beacon can be seen 21 miles out to sea and is rated as the strongest light on the Oregon Coast. Unfortunately, the entire lighthouse was encased in scaffolding and tarps and is closed for 1-2 years for extensive renovations. We were hoping to visit the lighthouse at night but that won't be possible – at least not on this trip.

Courtesy of the Internet…this is what it looks like.

There is a beautiful stream flowing into the ocean at Heceta Head Lighthouse that is interesting to see. Boy was that water cold! Also, the historic assistant light keeper's house sits on the hill and offers bed and breakfast rentals for group events.

Where the stream enters the ocean.

We found some interesting items while walking along the beach.

Just another day, sitting and posing for my photo.

While sitting outside this afternoon, Marsha was looking up at the sun. She couldn't figure out why the sun had a circle around it and rainbow colors.. She then took a photo and went to do her research. Here is what she found out…
These phenomena form when sunlight passes through ice crystals in the atmosphere, and refracts to split up the colors, or when light bounces off the ice crystals and is reflected.  If you would like to read more about this "Halo", click here.

Pretty cool photo.

After a great day, what better way to cap it off, but with a wonderful fire.

A bit more about Oregon…
All Oregon gas stations are REQUIRED to pump their gas for you.
Oregon offers an example of every geographic terrain on the planet within its borders.
At 1,943 feet, Crater Lake in Southern Oregon is the deepest lake in the US.

If you would like to see more photos of Cape Perpetua, please click here.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!

HARBOR VISTA PARK…FLORENCE, OR

Tuesday, May 29 – We were on the road early this morning headed for our next stop, Florence, OR. The drive was beautiful.

We are camped at Harbor Vista County Park in Florence, Oregon. What a nice campground! We are in Site 3 of the 38 available sights. It is easily accessible from Route 101 by driving about 3 miles out to the cape on a nice paved road.

Our site is paved, about 65 feet long, has a fire ring, a tent site (our patio), and 50 amp electric and water. There is a dump station available at the front gate.

Our site…West 3.
.

Our beautiful private side yard.

Looking left.

Looking right.

We were greeted by Pauline, a friendly camp host, who directed us to our site and made sure we had everything we needed. There is also a campground caretaker, that lives in a house in the campground, that takes care of maintenance and sells firewood. He does a wonderful job. The park is very clean.

There is a access to the beach where you can walk for miles along the sandy beach. This area of the coast is not the rugged high cliffs associated with most of the Oregon coastline.

Looking across the street where we can view the ocean.

Bella, our cat, just LOVES all the birds, smells, grass and areas for exploration. We are here for a week, and she will certainly enjoy herself.

This County Park's website does a great job of explaining each site. They even have a category for satellite reception for each site.

A gorgeous sunset.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!

 

GOLD BEACH, OREGON

We would like to thank everyone for their well wishes for our anniversary. Your comments, emails, and Ecards mean so much to us. A very special THANK YOU to Donna and Russ, Travels in Therapy. Since they know the Florence, OR, area, we told them where we were having dinner. When we arrived at the restaurant, a delicious cheese sampler was waiting for us compliments of Donna and Russ. WOW…we were so surprised. We haven't even met them yet, but we will on Saturday in Eugene. We are looking forward to thanking them in person. We had a wonderful seafood dinner. Oh yes, a few drinks were thrown in there also. Wonderful day and night.

A quick flashback…
Sunday, May 27 – We drove up the coastal highway, OR-101, to the city of Gold Beach. Sunny Gold Beach rests on the banks of the Rogue River where it flows into the Pacific Ocean. The Rogue has long been famous for world-class salmon and steelhead fishing.

Mouth of the Rogue River.

The Isaac Lee Patterson Bridge across the Rogue River on Highway 101 at Gold Beach is a beautiful bridge. It was the first in the United States to use prestressed concrete arches to reduce construction costs. It is designed with seven graceful arches that were finished to appear to be stone, but are actually concrete.

We drove to the harbor believing Gold Beach was a fishing town and would have an interesting fishing fleet to view. Nope! We were disappointed in the lack of fishing boats and with the low water level, They do have jet boats that tour up river, but it was a pretty cold and dreary day so not many people were interested in getting wet in the jet boats.

Sea lions taking a break at the harbor.

We did have a friendly dog come running over carrying a stick wanting to play fetch. The only problem was the stick was a piece of driftwood about ten feet long. It took all his effort to get it off the ground and follow us around the area. He was so disappoint when we had to leave without finding a substitute stick to throw for him. Off he ran down the path, dragging his stick, hoping to find someone to play fetch.

We stopped at the Myrtlewood Carving Factory on our way out of town. Myrtlewood is an extremely hard wood that is excellent for carving and turning. It grows only on the Northern coast of California, Southwestern Oregon and Israel. It has a beautiful grain and a wide variety of light colors. Tours are available, but being Sunday, only the store was open.

We stopped at several areas along the coast on our way back to Brookings. The rugged coast along 101 is so beautiful.

 

The beach is easily accessible and with the tide out, you had plenty of room to walk or play in the dark sand. There were very few people on the beach, even on this holiday weekend. Guess it is too early in the season, or it's too cold, or maybe there just aren't that many people in this area.

Burrrrrrrrr!

One way to get down to the beach.

Regardless, in most cases we had the vistas all to ourselves or we shared them with only a couple people.

View from Cape San Sebastian.

CRATER LAKE – We scrapped plans to visit Crater Lake. It's closed due to snow! There is only one mile of the road that is open. Guess we'll have to see that area sometime in the future.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!