Southern Oregon Coast

Friday, July 20, 2018

Day 36

174 miles

While we were in the Pacific Northwest, Daisy and I had been following on Facebook the travels of our friends Gloria and Mark Harmon from Roanoke, Virginia, who both retired recently. They drove across the U.S., took a cruise to Alaska from Vancouver, and then were driving back via a southern route. On July 19^th, we saw that they were traveling on the Oregon coast, not far from us. Daisy called them and we arranged for them to be at the same campground where we were staying in Crescent City, CA on the 20^th and 21^st. Having an unexpected opportunity to spend time with friends is priceless!

Daisy and I had started our day on July 20 with a hike from our Florence, Oregon campground to the adjoining Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, which is part of the Siuslaw National Forest.

Yes, that is the Pacific Ocean just over the top of the dune in the background.

 And we weren’t the only ones enjoying the dunes!

As we drove south on Highway 101, we had some lovely views of Siltcoos Lake to the east…

 …and the Pacific Ocean waves to the west.

In Port Orford, we stopped for fuel and asked the attendant where to go for lunch. She directed us to a funky place called Mr. Ed's.  There we had a BLT wrap. Its uniqueness was its tortilla spread, which we liked so much we talked to Ed himself. He appreciated our compliments and offered the recipe: 2 parts cream cheese, 1 part mayo, 1 part Dijon mustard.  Tasty.

Of course the iconic rocky Oregon coast was as beautiful after lunch as before.

This is the McCullough Memorial Bridge. It is a steel cantilever truss bridge that is over 5,305 feet long.that rises over Coos Bay for easy boat traffic clearance.

We were welcomed to California and Del Norte County, and excited about spending time in the Redwood country.










This was just before we crossed into California, and I guess it is also a sign of the times.









We did have to stop at a California agricultural check station just after we crossed the state line. They asked about the fruit and veggies we had on board and confiscated the fresh cherries we had in the refrigerator. We had crossed the national borders into Canada and back into the US without having anything confiscated. Go figure.

Our destination for the night was just outside of the city where we were to meet Gloria and Mark Harman, who would be tent camping in the same campground.

Our first close-up view of Redwoods was in our campground in Crescent City, California.  These were right across from our truck camper site.

Of course we had to take some photos of us with these icons of the coastal region.

Daisy first knew Gloria as her advisor in the master’s program at Virginia Tech in the late 1990s, and then continued to work with her as a family and consumer sciences teacher in the local area. It was good that Mark had been more prompt than we were about posting their daily travels on Facebook, or we wouldn’t have known their location in time to get together. We had nice visits at our truck camper on both Friday and Saturday evenings and enjoyed dinner together at the Chart Room in Crescent City on Saturday, where this photo was taken.

Interested in Redwoods? Stay tuned!