We are now on the central Oregon coast at a park called Whalers Rest. The park is very nice, in fact, might be one of the best we have stayed at. We have a beautiful, full hook-up site with lots of privacy and the park seems well managed. Just down the street from us is a nice path to the beach, and at night we can hear the surf through our bedroom window. That is way cool.
The drive from our last location was down 101 along the coast. There were some incredible vistas making the short drive very enjoyable.
Before we left, we had a couple more things we wanted to do on the northern coast. One of the coolest was the Railrider (
https://ocrailriders.com/). This is a pedal-powered excursion on actual railroad tracks. Each of the 'cars' holds four people, each responsible for pedaling throughout the trip. The cars were very cool and pedaling wasn't too difficult. I believe there were 10 cars total, but they are not physically connected. Thus each is powered only by its four riders.
Perhaps even cooler than the cars was our guide, Amy. The lead and caboose cars each had a guide and only one additional couple. Thus the first and last cars only had three pedalers. Cindy and I were selected to be in one of the guide cars, which is where we met Amy. I am sure we were selected because of our obvious drive and projected stamina 😁 (or perhaps because we looked too pitiful to survive the ride without a skilled guide to assist ☹️
As it turns out, Amy is a full-time RV'er and an author. How cool is that! We immediately hit it off and talked non stop for the entire two-hour ride. We had so much in common... well ok, she is a real author, but at least we are both RV'ers. She told us bits and pieces from her book's storyline and said she was going to put us in it. You can bet when it is released we will promote it here, so be on the lookout for an announcement. And if you are ever in Wheeler Oregon, check out the Rail Rider and look for Amy. You won't be disappointed.
On our last Saturday night on the northern coast, the park had a band, Sedona Fire. I can only say wow! Those of you who have seen Leslie Blasing would understand when I say the lead singer was that good. In Leslie fashion, they played without a break for over two hours, including some original stuff that we had to have. It was a great night and we even danced!
We also did one last hike up north and learned a hard lesson about trails near the beach. This hike was about four miles and virtually every inch was in soft sand. It was one of the more unique areas we have hiked in as you can see from the pics below, but it was also one of the toughest.
Upon arrival in the central coast area, we quickly determined there was more to do here than we had time to do. So we tried to identify a list of the must-do things and hope we can fit them all in.
At the top of the list was a couple of the lighthouses. The first one has an interesting story in that it was completely built and put into operation only to discover that it was not visible to the south. Seriously. So it remained in operation only three years while a second lighthouse was constructed about 5 miles up the coast. The pictures below show the first one which was on top of the lightkeepers home, and then the second, more traditional lighthouse which is still in operation today.
We also took one of our absolute best hikes. This one was about four miles through beautiful terrain, crossed a suspension bridge in the middle of nowhere, and culminated in a small but beautiful waterfall.
We have visited several of the beaches here and also took a five mile walk on our local beach. We found some shells and several shark's teeth. It's really interesting how clean the beaches are in Oregon. Also, check out the last pic from a place called Agate Beach. It is the only place we have ever seen such undulations in the sand.
We have also seen multiple whales here at a couple of the locations. One area is the Whale Watching Center in Depot Bay. The day we were there, there was an extreme tide and the waves were incredible. Not sure you can really see the whales except for a small spout. But we watched them for hours and saw lots of them. Amazing! I have also included a couple of the wave and blowhole pics. What a place!
We are here for one more week and then move to the southern Oregon coastal area for a couple of weeks before heading into northern California.
I can only say that Oregon has been amazing at every stop. We will absolutely be back sometime in the future.
Thanks for reading The Next Hundred Miles.
