8/30/2017 - Sea Lion Cave, Dune Ride

Wednesday - These two adventurers had another busy day.  Joe sat at our picnic table and watched them strapping down the lumber of the ship we've been watching.  Another camper said he had been here 4 days, and they had been loading it ever since he got here.

We headed out, and our first stop was a car wash to clean up the Buick.  Right next to our casino campground is another lumber company with a huge pile of wood chips, probably waiting for a different ship.  So we have lumber companies on both sides of us.

Our first agenda item was the Sea Lion Caves, back up the 101 north of Florence.  I thought it was about 40 miles, but it turned out to be 59.  Collins had told us these caves can be really smelly, so we were concerned about that, but it turned out not to be the case today. It was worth the drive, very interesting. 

Before we walked down to look at the sea lions, we tried to get a picture of the lighthouse here, but there was so much sea mist that we couldn't get a clear photo -- sometimes, we couldn't even see it.  The mist was laying over the hills on the other side of us too, but made a pretty scene.

 They had some painted sea lions on display, similar to other painted wildlife in other cities that we've seen.

The sea lions were all outside on the rocks, sunning themselves or playing in the water.  We probably saw close to 200 of them, these were the Stellar Sea Lions.  Males can weigh up to 1200-1500 lbs, and females 500-700.  Some of them looked like they had reached their full potential weight!  And they are very noisy.

Then we walked back up the ramp and took the elevator down to the caves.  These too were very interesting, even without the sea lions in them.  They come in when the weather is cold, but today they were all out enjoying the sunshine. We spent about 1 1/2 hours at the Sea Lion Caves.

 We headed south and stopped at one of the wood-carving shops because we had seen some awesome logs when we passed here.  We didn't buy anything but could sure appreciate the beautiful logs and the carver's talent.  The first two logs were redwood, but the carver said he also used red cedar, so I assume that's what the other one is.

Next, we got some lunch in Florence, then stopped at the first sand dune place.  They had a large, 10-seater but Joe didn't want to ride in that.

We couldn't get a ride there for an hour, so we went on down to another one, Frontier Sand Dunes.  They also had a big dune buggy, as well as a few smaller ones. 

Here, Joe got his sand rail ride (and of course drug me along too).

 These dunes are pretty awesome, and surprisingly, there are ponds in some of the dips.  And tree islands scattered around them, which are federally protected and you aren't allowed even to walk through them.  This is really not my cup of tea, especially when we go straight down the side of a sand cliff, but Joe loved it.  This is our group.

We didn't get down to the beach, but we could see it in the distance, along with several ponds we passed, one with people swimming in it.

Our driver told us during the winter these tree island harbor a lot of wildlife, elk, deer, bears.  And you can actually hunt in the dunes, but not in the tree islands.  These dunes are wet dunes, unlike the ones down by Yuma.  It was a good 30-minute drive, we went up and down like a roller coaster, and I survived.

Florence is the "gateway to the incomparable Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, stretching south for 40 miles" and end at Coos Bay.

Joe said "we went to the bowels of the earth and then went flying through the sand today."  A pretty exciting day. 

As we drove home, we took a couple of side trips to state parks.  This was the Umpqua Lighthouse, and the beach area and jetty by it. 

There were lots of parking areas here for the dunes, and they were in use too.

There was a tsunami siren here -- we have seen lots of these up and down this coast, along with posted tsunami evacuation routes.

We got back to the RV about 6:30, 137 miles today.  Temperature ranged from mid-50s this morning to 71 during the heat of the day.  And Joe's log ship had left port while we were gone so we didn't get to see it pull out.  But another successful day of adventures for us.  And after the sea mist cleared, we had clear skies, no smoke today.  We ate in, then I went down to the casino for a while, Joe stayed home and watched TV.  And I won about $25.  Better than losing $25.00!