Where the Forest Meets the Sea

This weekend Doug and I packed our bags and drove south. After fighting the traffic and extremely curvy mountain roads, we made it to our destination on the Oregon coast around 8:30pm on Friday night. That night we quickly learned that we were not properly prepared for spring time camping on the coast...it was very cold! After unthawing Saturday morning, we drove down the coastal highway to Florence. We had heard about the sand dunes in Florence, and thought we'd see what they were all about. I have never seen sand dunes, and I never had imagined them to be what they were. We felt like we had entered the dessert. The dunes were huge hills/mountains of sand for miles and miles, some around 500 ft tall. It was like nothing we have ever seen before! We took a really awesome dune buggy ride, which was quite scary, but a lot of fun. After the dunes, we went to one of the largest sea caves (in the world or America...not quite sure, but it was large). In the winter, the cave is full of seals, but during this time of year most of them hang out on the rocks. I almost got kicked out for using a flash camera, but the pictures were totally worth it.

During the weekend we also enjoyed taking some hikes to some different viewpoints and beaches. We did see some gray whales off in the distance with the binoculars, but a little too far away to take a good picture.

Even though four days without showers got to be a little long, and the nights were near brutally cold, we had a great time and can't wait for our next camping adventure!