8/31/2017 - Charleston to Bandon Tour Route

Thursday - Today is our last full day in this area, and the last item on our agenda here was the Charleston to Bandon Tour Route, a 41-mile trip southwest.  I thought perhaps we would have a short day and get back early, but we managed to stretch it into a full day and we got back to the RV just before 6:00.  But we had another excellent day.

We drove to Charleston, which is "the entrance to the deep-water port of Coos Bay," were we are parked, and drove to the harbor on the way to our tour route.  Apparently, this is a big oyster area, since there was a huge pile of shells here.

 We saw a ship going upriver, probably right past our campground, so we will hopefully see it again.

 A dog crossed the road in front of us, but he was in the crosswalk, so he was safe.  We didn't see any owners around.

 As we drove around the harbor, we saw the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, which would be of interest to John and Bridgette, but we didn't turn in there.

Our first official stop was Sunset Bay State Park on the Cape Arago Highway.  We walked the beach here, and picked up a few rocks and one piece of seaglass.

 Next up was the Shore Acres State Park, where there was a terrific botanical garden, the formal gardens of an old lumber baron's estate.  This was awesome, a miniature Butchart Gardens!

And here is Wilma in Bloom

 and Joe holding up a beautiful Japanese cedar tree.

We loved this place, thought it was a great little find.  In addition to lots of roses, there were a couple of beautiful dahlia gardens.

The gift shop also had beautiful things.  I really liked some of the wood creations, but alas, they were made in Viet Nam, so Joe wouldn't let me buy them.

I liked the stained glass window hangings too, but they were out of my budget.

 Then we walked to the overlook here, and saw one whale, very briefly.

 There was a piece of driftwood I need.

 Joe led us to the trail down to the beach, rather than taking the pathway.  It was a big of a jungle.

But the beach was good.

We did take the easier path back to the car.  Next stop was the Simpson Reef in Cape Arago State Park, which was loaded down with seals and sea lions.  Present were Stellar Sea Lions, California Sea Lions, Northern Elephant Seals and Harbor Seals.  And they were all very noisy.  There were hundreds of them, all getting along together.

Just around the corner was another overlook, and here we saw another whale, this time we got a good look at the whale tail -- in fact we saw it a couple of times.   No picture, of course.  But I kept looking.

It's hard to move on when there is a whale in the vicinity, but we finally did, back on the road to the Seven Devils Road, which after a few miles became a dirt road.  We followed it, not sure if we were still on our Tour route, but it eventually led us to Seven Devils Beach.  We walked this beach, and finally found some agate rocks (at least we think they are agates) and another piece of seaglass.

Back on the road, we made it back to the highway, crossed the 101, and immediately came upon some cranberry bogs.  The berries are looking riper than the last ones we saw, so trhey are getting closer to harvest time.

We finally reached Bandon, and drove down to Bandon Beach State Park, another nice beach, with a boardwalk down to it.  And we saw the old 1896 lighthouse, but couldn't get down to it.

We drove around town trying to find lunch (it was after 3:00 by now).  We finally ended up at a Mexican restaurant, then drove around and parked again to walk into some of the shops.  I had noticed one named "Washed Ashore," and I thought it was either a gift shop or a thrift store.  I was wrong, it was a gallery of art pieces created out of trash removed from beaches through volunteer community cleanups.  This trash is then washed, sorted and prepared for the creation process, under the direction of an artistic director.  It was really cool, some beautiful pieces and if you really looked at them, you could see the plastic, buttons, rubber, etc., that they are made of.

They also had created a coral reef that glowed in the dark; by shutting the curtains, you got to see what it would look like underwater.  Pretty cool.  This actually was not created out of trash, this was a project the art director was working on before she became the director here.

Tula the Turtle was especially lovable, especially her eyelashes.

In addition to the fish here, I had seen one as we entered town, so we drove back around to get a picture of that one too.  When I saw it the first time, I didn't realize it was made from trash!

Bandon was a cute beach town, but we finally left it and headed back to the campground.

We stopped at an Ace Hardware, but got in just before 6:00.  The day was clear, but the smoke is coming in this evening a little bit, and may be worse tomorrow, especially in Brookings where we are headed.  I washed off my collection of rocks and sea glass, and I really do think we found some agates.  I picked up some pieces of driftwood too, but I didn't put them in the picture.

We never saw the ship again, so it must have gone on upriver.  We will keep an eye out as we leave tomorrow.