Boy, did we get blessed!

Well, we’ve been at the Oregon coast five days now and have explored both north and south of our current location (the KOA in the city of Langlois).  The town south of us is Port Orford and the furthest town north we explored is Coos Bay/Charleston.  Here’s our RV in this sumptuous site surrounded by a thick forest of evergreens, ferns, and an assortment of wildflowers and shrubbery.

I won’t bore you with thousands (not really) pictures of the coastline.  Don’t tell any Oregonian I said this, but after a while, it truly does have a tendency to all look the same.  (Gasp, such heresy spoken here!!!)  I’ll just give you the highlights so far which will be easy to do because my sister, Mary, gave me a journal for our trip and I pen our exploits at the end of every day.

Let me start with an amazing little restaurant we stopped at for lunch on our way up the coast.  It was in Gold Beach and it is called “Barnacle Bistro”.  I had their fish and chips made from very fresh cod.  It was the ABSOLUTE BEST fish and chips I ever eaten, bar none!  Gary had a mushroom burger with grilled mushrooms and onions sprinkled with blue cheese.  If you ever find yourself in this part of Oregon, you simply MUST stop by this restaurant … amazing food!  Okay, now that the foodie in me is out of the way, onto the sightseeing!

Our first full day we drove north to New River and then the town of Bandon. We did a short hike to the river, but couldn’t access the beach as the river was between us and the beach.  That is one of the very different things about the coast in Oregon compared to So. Cal.  There are so many (and I mean many) creeks and rivers that flow to the ocean.  You can hardly travel a mile without crossing over a creek or river.  On the hike, we passed through this prehistoric looking forest with moss covered trees.  Here’s a picture of one of them.  It was almost like a Stephen King movie/book, it looked so eerie. 

On our way back out, I had Gary pull over so I could take a picture of these pine trees.  They reminded me of a troop of soldiers—so tall and erect and in perfect formation.  They just caught my eye and I had to have a photo!

This is a picture of Sadie and Sherwood exploring the river bank.  Those are two happy hounds.

Finally, here’s a picture of me at New River.  Behind me, across the river, you can see a dune area.  Right on the other side of that is the ocean.

To get to Bandon, we took Beach Loop Drive that went along the coast which meant we got to “lookie-lou” at all the cool houses overlooking the ocean.  The drive took us straight into Old Bandon, which is a quaint fishing village.  We also stopped at the Face Rock Creamery.  They make their own fresh cheese and you can watch the whole process. Unfortunately, there was no cheesemaking going on the day that we visited.  However, we did taste a number of cheeses and Gary bought himself a chunk of cheddar and then we each had a scoop of their yummy ice cream.

The next day we were going to just “hang out” and have a day off, but the weather turned out so gorgeous we decided to make the trek to Cape Blanco to see their “famous” lighthouse … famous because it is supposed to be the most westerly lighthouse on the west coast.  On the way to the lighthouse we stopped at historic Hughes House and did a quick walking tour.  It is an amazing, beautiful home that was built in 1898.  Here’s Gary hanging around out front so I could take a picture.

The Cape Blanco lighthouse is still an active lighthouse today, but is totally run on electricity and is “unmanned.”  We bought tickets to go up to the top, but after the first flight of spiral stairs, my acrophobia (fear of heights) kicked into high gear and I was barely able to turn around, grab the banister, and get myself back downstairs!  Sheesh!  What a waste of $2.00 (LOL!).  Gary continued on up but the top was still occupied by another party that refused to move out, so he came back down without any pictures from up top.  Here we are before the paralyzing fear assailed me. 

On our way home, we turned off on Paradise Road to access the beach to let the dogs have a good run.  The beach was totally deserted—we had it all to ourselves.  So, of course, the dogs were off-leash.  Poor Sherwood (who already has no stability because of his bad joints) got whacked by a wave that hit him from behind and he went crashing down along with the wave.  Poor baby had a really hard time getting back up and was a bit traumatized.  I made a delicious Pasta Pomodoro dish for dinner.  It was excellent and I’ll post the recipe separately.

The next day we packed a picnic lunch and headed for Coos Bay – up the coast.  We headed west to the small town of Charleston and went to Sunset Bay State Park, which happens to be the most photographed cove on the Oregon coast!  It was another PICTURE PERFECT day with clear skies and no wind.  This is a cool little cove and we had a great day sitting on our beach chairs, eating lunch, and just enjoying the gorgeous scenery.  Below is a video I took of the cove.  Hope you enjoy the beauty as much as we did.

After those two beautiful, amazing, clear, no wind days we woke up to fog and wind again.  I basically hung around and did some work for my sister and took it easy.  We also did laundry and grocery shopping.  Hoping tomorrow will be less windy.  Although I’m sorely tempted to just video-tape the trees as the wind whirls through their leaves and creates this melodious symphony of leaves upon leaves.