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Published: October 7th 2013
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Leaving San Fran
Golden Gate Bridge, SF October 5, 2013
I’m typing this sat in a very nice open plan kitchen in Waldport, Oregon. It’s pitch black outside but I know the sea is close as I can hear the pounding surf upon the sand and I’m pretty confident we’re going to wake up to yet another amazing view tomorrow morning. We’ve not long arrived so all we’ve seen so far is a sky full of twinkling stars.
Sam is making his special pecan toffee chocs (his version of Nestle Turtles using this Caramel Apple Wrap stuff we discovered in Safeway. As the name suggests it’s a very simple way of making toffee apples, just wrap a sheet of caramel around the apple; but we discovered they’re also great if you wrap up pecan nuts in the soft pliable toffee sheet then dip the whole thing in melted chocolate. Nuts, caramel and chocolate. My favourite combination!!)
Steve and Matthew are watching football (American) over in the sitting area. It’s a fantastic house and it’s literally right on the beach on the beautiful Oregon Coast.
We left San Francisco on another beautiful day. The traffic again was not a problem at all and
Redwoods
California it was a breeze driving through the city and over the Golden Gate Bridge. We stopped a few times, including the small town of Willets again, once again noticing just how friendly and polite everyone is. Have we just been lucky or are all Northern Californians this “nice”? Either way it’s very refreshing.
We take the Avenue of the Giants alternative route to the Hwy 101 which takes us through the Humboldt Redwoods State Park. This time we’ve got a perfect blue sky and it’s interesting to compare the forests in the different weather. It’s true that the sun barely gets a look in in some places but in others it streams down through the overhead canopy creating patches of intense light, making for some lovely photos.
It’s the Best Western Bayshore in Eureka again for a good night’s sleep (and another awesome breakfast this morning!) before we start out at 9am for a long day of driving today.
It’s over 6 hours to Waldport today but starting at 9am helps (it being a Saturday means Steve doesn’t need to put in a few hours work first – we just have to allow time for breakfast first!).
Dune Buggies
Spinreel, North Bend, OR We have another fine day and a lovely section of redwoods to do again and because of the weather it’s tempting to keep stopping and take photos!
A quick pit stop at a drive through Starbucks (don’t think we have those yet in the UK?!) and we’re off again onto a different section of the coast we’ve not yet covered on this trip.
The road hugs the beautiful coastline and again we’re so lucky to have such fantastic weather. On the way down we had cloud and a little rain which made the coast exciting and made us think of Cornish holidays in the autumn but now we have a clear blue sky and the sea has changed colour accordingly. It’s spectacularly beautiful and the driving is slow!
Finally we arrive in North Bend at the beginning of the famous Oregon Sand dunes. We’re intent of renting quad bikes at some stage but are prepared for just checking it out for now. However it turns out there’s still time to do it this afternoon so we go for it!
The boys have been waiting for this moment and they’re not disappointed. Matthew has a 90
Pacific Sunset
Oregon Coastline cc quad bike and Sam is delighted to be offered the next size up, the 200 cc and Steve and I get the 400 cc.
Steve and I did this 18 odd years ago with Dad and although there are many places along the Oregon Sand Dunes to do this I can’t help feeling that this place is familiar. It could well be the same one. What is not familiar is the sense of fear I have this time around! We all get the hang of the accelerator soon enough but while the 3 boys are happy to squeeze theirs to the limit I’m holding back a lot, always at the back. Ah, the joy of having older boys!
We’ve been pre-warned of taking a hill too slowly and tipping, or careering too quickly over the tip of a dune only to roll the quad over on the descent (and the list of varying costs that will be entailed if we do this) so it’s with concern when Matthew obviously won’t be making the hill he’s ascending after Sam and Steve! He tries to go sideways but I can see from my vantage point that it’s not going
"Big Tree"
California to work. He runs out of dune and the quad slides down a grassy bank out of sight while thankfully Matthew quickly ‘falls’ off the back. He’s ok and the quad is ok apart from the flag, which costs us all of $5. It’s one of the listed items on our accompanying damage waiver sheet thus suggesting a fairly regular occurrence of this type of damage!
It’s the only accident any of us has and considering Steve managed to roll his 18 years ago when he took a steep dune too quickly (an accident that could have been far worse considering Dad and I immediately followed him over the same dune, narrowly missing him! Needless to say we kept this in mind this time and were extra careful!).
It feels good to have done this today in spite of or maybe because of the length of our drive. It’s given us a break and the fact that we don’t turn up at our Waldport accommodation until nearly 8pm (earlier had it not been for the amazing sunset that coincided with the part of the drive that hugged the coastline the closest and meant lots of photo stops) is
not a problem. Having to contact the owner to find out the correct code for the key lock as opposed to one they’d given us was, on the other hand, a problem but a small inconvenience that a quick phone call sorted out and once in we could not have been happily.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Nice photo
Sad you had to leave.