North Bend, OR June 30 - July 3

We arrived from Gold Hill in the rain.   The road into the campground was a quagmire of mud and ruts.      I was cussing up a storm, as I had my Merrills on, not my waterproof hiking boots.   Sure did a number on my clean kitchen floor -- even WITH a mat and papers to step on!    This campground is a Off Road Vehicle friendly campground, so almost every camp site has 3-6 quads parked next to their trailers.   Lots of guys, not a lot of women.   The reason it's so popular with the ORVers is that there is direct access behind the campground to the sand dunes where they spend their days roaring up and down the dunes.

We settled in and read our brochures and decided on a plan of action for Sunday and Monday.   Luckily the rain stopped overnight, so after breakfast we headed out to the visitor's center for more into and directions.   Our first jaunt was to the Cape Arago highway which took us to the OR beaches, state parks, and Charleston, a small historic fishing village.   The road is about 16 miles long, and has features such as Simpson Bay were you can stand on an overlook and experts help you direct the telescopes to a rocky stretch which is populated by Pacific sea lions.   We tried to take a picture through the lens of the telescope.   You can see brown "bumps" on the beach -- those are the sea lions!   We also saw the Cape Arago lighthouse, which is deserted and unreachable.   From there we came back past our campground and headed to Hall Lake loop where we could see the coast's largest dune at 140 ft. in height.   Deciding we really needed to get close and personsal with the dunes, the visitor's center suggested that the safest place to hike would be the John Dellenback Dunes Trail, as on other dunes you would likely be competing with the quads.   The north half of the trail was an easy hike, and the trail was paved.   When we got to the dunes we climbed the closest dune.  Whew!   That was a job with  the soft sand and going up one of the highest dunes along the coast.   The southern trail back to the trail head was sand for a good part of it, so my legs felt like rubber when I got to the truck.   ENOUGH!

Monday we decided to tour a Myrtlewood factory and learn about the myrtlewood trees that only grow in a small area of OR and Northern CA and in Israel.   The tree reminds me of a Bradford pear in shape, but it has many thick trunks.   It's slow growing, and takes 100 years to get to a size that can be used.   The factory makes furniture, golf putters, decorative and kitchen items.   Very pretty.

Tomorrow (July 3) we will drive about 75 miles to Walport, OR where we'll hide out until July 6.