Day 10 to 16 - More Amazing Oregon Coast

We have been traveling south (albeit quite slowly) down the coast.  We have been only traveling a max. of 2.5 hours a day.  Jack sleeps for about an hour each day in the Beast.  There are so many Oregon State Parks and they are all so nice!  None of them have services so that is why we haven't blogged (is that a word?) in awhile.  

On Day 10, we saw the beginning of the Oregon Dunes Recreation Area.  I have never in my life seen so much sand!  There are 47 miles of it.  It is ATV heaven.  We stopped for lunch and climbed a huge hill of sand probably 100m high.  It is so soft, that if you fall you'd never hurt yourself and it doesn't have sticks or rocks so you can climb in your bare feet.  So cool.

In Newport, we went to a great aquarium with glass tunnels, so you are surrounded by fish. Along the way, every town has its claim to fame - we have seen the world's smallest navigable harbour (Depoe Bay), the world's shortest river (D River at 120 feet), the world's largest sea lion cave (Florence) - all within a couple of days!  There is also tons of Salt Water Taffy stores.  Figures.  It's about the only candy I don't really like.

We went for a hike from our campground in Florence and it led us to more dunes overlooking a lake.  I just love these dunes.  It's worth an entire family vacation some day to come here with some ATVs and cruise down the beaches and hills.  We took a dune buggy tour thru the dunes and along the beach...it was great.  It was so bumpy and rough, I was worried about Jack.  Not necessary - I look down beside me and he's asleep!  Hilarious.  There is so much sand, they have sandboarding.  Basically, snowboarding on sand.  We missed the opening of the place by a few days - we are coming back here some day anyway!

Campgrounds are full of dog people.  We have seen a ton of Corgis (Mac type dogs) here...Oregonians seems to know what John has known for 16 years...what a great dog Corgis are.  Gus seems to be a big hit here in all the campgrounds as well.  I feel like making him a sign saying..."Hi, I'm a purebred Drever.  From Sweden.  Yes, I do look like a basset hound and a beagle.  Yes, I know I'm cute."  Then my sign would say "take him for a walk, and then tell me he's cute".  Gus has not lost his puppy energy.  However, I did take him on a run and half way through I was dragging him!  Ah, the revenge.

Then we were in Bandon, Oregon for a few days.  The weather finally was sunny (still a bit cold due to the wind from the ocean) but sunny!!  We biked to the beach and Jack loved it.  For some reason, he shoved his face in the sand - he had sand in his ears, hair, nose and mouth.  Quite funny.  They have an amazing golf course here along the ocean but it is really windy and it is $220/round and we'd have to play on our own since we don't have anyone to look after Jack so we opted out.  Plus you have to have a caddie.  With the wind, I'd be so embarrassed about my play, I wouldn't enjoy myself!

We left Bandon today after having fish & chips (Jack loves the chips part) and playing along the most beautiful beach we've seen yet.  We are in a hideous campground tonight (how can they possibly screw up when you are 200 feet from the ocean but they did)  but we are inside reading, doing laundry and catching up on emails anyway.  This campground didn't even get their wifi connection working properly...can't upload pictures again.  Will try again next log on day.

Heading to California and the Redwoods tomorrow.