2 On The Road Blog

After 12 years of full-time rving, we've sold our truck and trailer but we're still traveling. Email us at wowpegasus@hotmail.com if you would like to contact us.




Monday, June 07, 2010

Florence, OR Sights

On south side of Florence this historic bridge crosses the Siuslaw River. Don't ask me how that is pronounced.
Our first stop was the Harbor Vista County Park. This overlook was up by the campground. It looks like some of the sites are ones we could get into with our truck and trailer.
Then we drove on down to the inlet where these two Coast Guard vessels were practicing towing the larger vessel with the dinghy.
On the other side of the sea wall was a beach. It was cool in a t-shirt but there were plenty of people out there on a weekday. This is looking north.
The second stop was the Darlingtonia Botanical Wayside. This is a sphagnum bog noted for its cobra lilies.
The coastal area of Oregon is a temperate rain forest so there is a lot of moss on everything.

The cobra lilies
Up close view.
The third stop was the Heceta Head Lighthouse State Scenic Viewpoint. We went through a tunnel then crossed over this bridge. Right after the bridge, we took a right turn and curled around under the bridge to the parking area for the lighthouse. We got to the parking area at 3 pm and that is when they stop giving tours of the lighthouse. We hadn't come for the lighthouse, just for the view.
We decided to walk down the right side of the inlet. The sea cliff were cratered with caves.
Looking back toward the south we could see a small portion of the road we traveled to get here and the Sea Lion Cave building. Sea Lion Cave is the largest sea cave in the world and it is populated with sea lions.
We had to climb over some large rocks and along this pitted shoreline to get closer to the ocean. There were lots of deep holes and inlets carved into the rock by the ocean waves.
In the holes were clams.. I think they were clams anyway.
We don't know if these small things were baby clams or what.
We walked until we couldn't get any further and enjoyed this view.
Waves would come in and crash up agains the rock we were standing on. We got splashed a little.
To the right was a small cave.
There were star fish clinging to the walls.
Just a slightly different view.
Another big splash. We love watching waves hit rocky shorelines so this was the high point of our day.
There were also starfish clinging to the rocks here.
Looking up we could see the lighthouse higher up.
The walk back to the beach and our car.
Looking in some of the pools, we could see sea urchins but they were barely open.
We headed back south and stopped at a viewpoint at the top of a cliff. This is a view of the lighthouse and the ocean shore we were just exploring.
Looking down, we could see Sea Lions laying around and enjoying the sunshine.
This sea gull was begging for scraps on the rock barrier at the view point.
We stopped again to check out the views. This is looking north with the Sea Lion Cave building on the cliff.
Looking south there were beaches as far as we could see.
Just where we parked the car along the road to see the last two views.

No comments: