Today was a great day! We woke up to the sound of the waves crashing and the smell of bacon. I don't know what's better than that! It was a foggy day and that seems to be what the weather is like here on the Pacific Coast. It was about 60 degrees with a breeze AND foggy. The fog seems to burn off later in the day and then roll back in in the evening. We checked out of our hotel and walked through town a bit to find a place to eat and realized that most of the restaurants were closed for some reason! We ended up at the Shilo Cafe and had a great breakfast (mom got her beloved sausage gravy and biscuits). We had called the Tu Tu Tun Lodge in Gold Beach to see if they had any last minute cancellations. This lodge had been recommended by our friend Leslie Johnston. Luckily they had two free rooms! The dinner menu was prix fix and we had a choice between pork cooked two ways (pulled pork and smoked) or shrimp scampi. We both chose the pork. Why am I writing so detailed about our trip? Who cares!
ANYWHO
We continued our drive along the coast and our first stop was Cape Pepetua which is the highest point on the coast that you can drive to. I had a little bit of vertigo as we were driving and strictly instructed mom to keep her eyes on the road!
Our next stop was the Sea Lion Caves, which might be the coolest thing that I've ever seen. It's this cave within the mountain that sea lions seem to flock to. The sea lions look like slugs or worms on this little rock as they huddle for warmth and then bark at each other when someone gets pushed around or trampled on.
The rest of the drive was a few minor pit stops to take some photos. This coast is like nothing I've ever seen before. East Coast beaches don't have $hit on these beaches. There's almost a half mile of sand before your feet touch the water and then you get to look at these awesome rock formations. I'm sure that the body surfing can be fun but something tells me that the undertow probably isn't.... either way if I lived on the beach it would have to be on THIS coast!
So here's some highlights!
View from our hotel room this morning
The beach thru the pines
Some of these awesome bridges that we've driven over
Mine?
Sea Lion Cave
This is also home to the largest sea cave in the continental US
Miles of dunes!
Our hotel room at the Tu Tu Tun Lodge! We overlooked the Rogue river, had a FANTASTIC dinner, slept like babies and are sad to leave!
Mom feeding the deer some apples and pears from the fruit trees
We sat here and had some hors d'ouvres and cocktails while we waited for drinks
The view of the river from the lodge
MOMMA'S NOTES
So many layers of beauty seen today from the long, deep beaches and dramatic coastline to the soaring pine covered peaks along the coast. Oregon is stunning. There should be advisories along rte 101 telling you to keep your eyes on the road, a blow-your-mind view is around the bend. TuTuTun Lodge is a very welcome and luxurious place to land with a fine sampling of OR wines. Managed to stay out of a potentially volatile debate on Obama because of a nice pinot noir I was really more interested in.
