Our goal today was to get to the Oregon coast and take a scenic drive along the beach. It is about a 3 hour drive to the coast and we had a few sites to take in. Our goal was to get to Oregon Dunes National Preserve, and Thors Well. The drive out of Mount Hood was very remote but we stopped at a gas station to fuel up at the bottom of the descent from our hotel. It’s about a 10 mile drive down from the hotel to the main road to begin! Once we grabbed some coffee and gas we headed to taco bell to try their breakfast and we were pleasantly surprised with their food, as it was the first time we had tried their newly released breakfast menu.
We headed westward to the coast and one of the most beautiful drives of the trip were presented to us, which was through a gorge heading to the coast. This is the gorge that runs along the Umpqua River, and was a pleasant surprise after driving south on the interstate for an hour and half. Once we got to Reedsport on the coast, we were presented with a farm of Elks! This was a unique site on the coast of the Pacific, for animals that you would only expect to be seen in the presence of mountains! Nonetheless this state road was a great drive that presented ourselves with great views.
We reached the city and grabbed lunch at Mcdonalds, obviously this is turning out to be a non-healthy day. We then headed south thinking it was the proper way to head to the Oregon Dunes. This turned out to be not the case as we had to turn around on the road and head back up the coast northbound.
This was the beginning of our Oregon coast trek, which put us back on the water since we left the the coast in Eureka California, almost two weeks prior. The Oregon Preserve was kind of lack luster since we had seen much larger dunes in Colorado, but nonetheless it was something we took our time to enjoy and do our selfie picture. From this point our next stop heading north ended up being the Sea Lion preserve on the coast, called Sea Caves, which is one of the largest preserves in North America. We had to stop and pay for entry, but it was very interesting to check the place out in a cave that was accessible by elevator. The coastline has a rock that consistently has over 100 seals relaxing, unfortunately it was only visible at the viewpoint which cost a decent amount to see. I believe it was $12 a person to go in. From the viewpoint you can see across the distance to a lighthouse which seems to be an iconic view, which we took a picture of.
It was a little cold with the wind, however it was still a gorgeous viewing day. Everything seemed to be going well….until we left the sea lion preserve and hit some major traffic on US 1. The culprit of this turned out to be an overturned vehicle/ RV that was completely demolished. This closed a whole lane and cause a massive slow down, but after about an hour delay, we continued north and finally met our final destination of the day called Thor’s well (I believe it is also known as the devil’s Punchbowl). This is a unique underwater arch that fills and recedes with the waves. When the waves are crashing hard, the feature acts like a geyser and provides dramatic spouts.
Fortunately for us the tide was low, and we could walk out, and find the site. Since this was not labeled on the pull off, we had to use google maps to find it and it was actually plotted as being in the water, so we walked out onto shells and found it! This was a great little detour off the road, and we enjoyed seeing all the sea life in this area. There were mussels, sea urchins, and starfish, with coutless other forms of life, living in this geological marvel.
After taking time to venture out of the car, we stopped at the famous Mo’s Restaurants in Newport for dinner which is actually a chain restaurant on the west coast, but their fried seafood platter was great and the view from the city of Newport during the evening was splendid! This was great, as most tourists would not know of this if I had not read about it in my research of this trip. This was a successful find, and made us happy to cross it of the list. We then headed north with about an hours worth daylight left, and we were able to scrape up a campsite on the beach. This proved to be an awesome campsite at Sandbeach Campground, near Pacific City, as we were almost on the water, and were able to have a fire close to the beach. We cooked a snack (mostly hot water for hot chocolate) and then headed to bed to head North and reach one of our most looked forward to destinations….Olympic National Park!
July 18 – Expenses
27.84 gas
3 coffee
1.79 water
6.83 taco bell
9.37 snack
18.81 gas
28 sea lion caves
35 dinner
25 camp
Total – 155.64
MILES DRIVEN – 390