Oregon Dunes
July 13, 2017

As we depart the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, we sift sand from between our teeth and one of us vows to never climb another sand dune (hint: it's not Chris).  The place is perfect for ATVers who spend all day and much of the night roaring up and over and through and around so that their engine’s buzzing noise eventually fades into the background for those of us within five miles of the doin's.

Obviously, there is much more to the area than the dunes: rivers, lakes and forests abound and the greenery is amazing.  At our park on Woahink Lake, the trailer was hemmed in by living hedges to the extent that we couldn’t even see our neighbors unless we went around the end and peered into their hedge tunnel.

Evidently, winter here in the Florence area doesn’t bring freezing temperatures, the result being 15-foot-tall butterfly bushes grown to trees and fuchsia used as a landscape hedge.  Criminetly, I can’t even get fuchsia to grow decently in a pot on my back porch!

That’s the good side.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, they don’t have summer, either.  July’s highs are in the 60s, occasionally creeping up into the 70s.  80 constitutes a heat wave there and is soon gone.

Exercise . . .

Another advantage to the dunes is that a person can walk one mile while getting exercise equivalent to four miles of hiking.  It is hard work slogging through very deep loose sand; doing it uphill even more so.

We quite enjoyed (except for the slogging) hike along the Siltcoos River right up to its terminus in the ocean. 

It began innocently enough, but conditions changed abruptly when we got to the trail closure for the nesting snowy plover.  Seems to me the dang birds could manage without my inconvenience, but evidently not, so for the summer, hikers are detoured off the trail onto a deeeeep sandy vehicle road of sorts.

The sights along there were fine and dandy, too, even though we left the river’s course.  The route took us through Waxmyrtle Marsh, and somewhere along there, we spotted our first bald eagle of the trip.   At other places along the Siltcoos, we also added orange-crowned warbler, white-crowned sparrow, cedar waxwing, northern harrier, marbled godwit and Caspian tern to the bird list for the trip.

The beach, shells . . .

When finally we came out on the beach, the tide was just beginning to come in. 

We were astounded at the extensive drifts of shell bits out there.  I promised myself I would not pick up any shells (I need more shells about as much as I need more rocks), but found myself helpless from their allure.  Then Chris spotted a few he needed, so we assuaged our guilt by saying we were getting them for Trinity (sorry Sara!).

An encounter . . .

With the tide out, some sand bars were above the water beyond a water channel; we were very surprised to see a herd(?) of sea lions lounging out there.  We have never encountered them on a beach before.  In truth, we don’t know how to tell the difference between seals and sea lions (kind of embarrassing), but we called them sea lions and are pretty sure that's what they are.

All of the animals were bunched up except for one extra large guy that clearly was very experienced at relaxing.  He was flopped out there as flat as a huge blubbery body could get, moving not a muscle in sharp contrast to the constant bickering and barking of the herd.

As the sand bars were covered by the incoming tide while we were off down the beach, we discovered that Big Boy had relocated to our side of the water and had flopped himself flat out where we had to pass.

As we were nearing, he managed to turn his head just enough to keep an eye on us without actually going so far as to lift it off the sand.

As we got closer, he decided the situation required action, as he rose up to an intimidating height and roared at us, showing his sharply pointed teeth.

We detoured far enough around to allow him to remain at his post, but he kept a wary eye over his shoulder to assure himself that we understood we were on his turf.

The sea lions were just beyond this point where the river channel joins the Pacific.  The Siltcoos' water was warm, which may be why the animals were congregated there.

While wandering the beach which we had entirely to ourselves in the company of the large sea lions, we spotted small beetle-like creatures that, when nudged, quickly buried themselves in the sand.  Upon closer inspection, we saw that some had clusters of tiny orange eggs secreted in the folds of their bodies.  At least we think they were eggs, not being overly conversant with these things.

Old town, ice cream. . .

We did a bit more wandering around Florence’s historic district.  It is a charming place and probably worth the trip entirely just to have home made ice cream at BJ’s - very possibly the best I’ve ever had!

It was fun to get acquainted with Ivy, a Bernese mountain dog of extraordinary comeliness.  At only 18 months, she had just taken third place in a Bernese show competition among 500 dogs.  Somehow, in the midst of discussing the dog, we failed to get her owner’s name.  Interestingly, Ivy's companion said that she pays no attention whatsoever to other dogs except for those of her breed, which she always recognizes and greets enthusiastically.

We met yet another former Prescotonian, William, who now resides in nearby Lake Sutton, having changed localities to get away from our mountain winters.  Looks to me like he also got away from summers, but then there are always trade-offs.

Sea Lion Caves, life birds, whales . . .

We visited Sea Lion Caves, purported to be the largest in the nation quite a few years back, but had a great time stopping there again except that we like to froze our butts off.  The wind was blowing steady at 300 miles per hour and the temperature was 50 below zero.  At least I think that's pretty accurate; we were so chilled that when we got back to the RV park, we both thought we might sit on the park's bathroom floor underneath the hand dryer to warm up!

At any rate, the cave was awesome and interesting, and was made even better because we got to add a life bird, the pigeon guillemot, which is a pelagic bird, meaning it lives on the open ocean, so we would not normally have the opportunity to get it except that it nests in the cave, so our timing was perfect.

And then there was the colony of common murres on the rocky cliff below us as we approached the cave, another pelagic life bird that congregates on rocky shores to nest.  I thought this photo of them would make a good jigsaw puzzle.

For me, though, the even bigger attraction was whales!  We were told that with warmer water temperatures. some whales are summering along the Oregon coast instead of following their previous migration habit of going to Baja.

Despite the extreme weather conditions, we watched for a very long time as we enjoyed spotting the surfacings and blowings of four or five California gray whales.  What a wonderful unexpected treat that was!

Gulls were among the birds nesting on the rocks.  We saw tiny fluffy baby gulls (below - another good jigsaw puzzle picture) exploring their new world.  There are three in the photo, very hard to spot with their little spotted heads.  In addition, we identified Brandt's cormorant there.

From our breezy vantage point near the Sea Lion Caves, we got a great visual perspective of the the sand dune area.  It was amazing to actually watch from there as the dunes were being built: the sand was being blown upward away from the water, making me very glad I was not down there at the time in the midst of the cutting wind-driven sand.

 Looking north from our cliff-top perch, we could see the 56-foot-tall Heceta Head lighthouse, built in 1894.  It emits the strongest light on the Oregon coast, 21 nautical miles.

Back at Florence: a handsome historic bridge spans the Suislaw River there.  It was constructed in 1936 and is a drawbridge on its center spans to allow large boat traffic to pass.