Florence, OR 5/31 - 6/1/00


Today we drove about 130 miles to Florence, OR. We are staying at Woahink Lake RV Resort. It is located across the road from the lake and adjacent to Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. The park has an access ramp for ATVs to the dunes. (1 of 6)

Here we are on the dunes. The ocean is about 1 mile to the right. The wind was blowing hard on Susan's back. We just walked up the hill from the direction she is facing and our footprints have already been covered. What a difference between the coastline today and the one we have seen for the last week or so.
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6/1 Today we took an hour ride in a sandrail with another couple and the driver. We were planning to rent a couple of 4-wheelers but we decided it would be more fun to have someone drive us. It was a blast! The professional driver took us on a trip that we would never have done ourselves. This was the ultimate roller-coaster ride. I swear we were going just about vertical when he took us down some of the dunes. We were fortunate to have a couple with us that enjoyed the adrenaline driving as much as we did.
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*A pano shot taken from my seat in the back of the sandrail.*
This scans from the West to the East while we sat on top of a large sand dune. The ocean is about a mile to the West (of course). The sand dunes stretch approximately 42 miles along the coast and are up to two miles deep. (4 of 6)

It's amazing how fast the coast changes. This picture was taken about 10 miles North of the sand dunes.
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This is the Heceta Lighthouse. It is located just up the path from where I took the preceding coast line picture. This is an operational lighthouse built in the 1890's. It has the original frisnel lens system but it now has an electric light rather than the original kerosene lighting system. We were given an excellent guided tour of the lighthouse where we were able to walk up to the top and view the mechanism and the lighting system. (6 of 6)