Day 2- What a busy and beautiful day!

Where to start...we covered a ton of ground today and made a bunch of stops. I want to put this right at the front of this entry...the Oregon Coast is absolutely fantastic. Driving the 101 is incredible. I can't stress enough how much everyone needs to do this trip.

We headed west shortly after leaving this morning along Oregon Route 34 which takes you from the I-5 to the Pacific Coast Highway 101. I didn't expect much of 34, a short jaunt through hillbilly Oregon and we'd be at the coast. But wow- what a spectacular drive. First, we went through Corvallis, which is a cute little town, home to Oregon State University. The rest of the drive took us through the Siuslaw National Forest which not only offered great scenery, but a great road...tons of S curves and tight hairpin turns around beautiful groves of trees. See for yourself...needless to say we made this a fun drive.

Highway 34 ends at a little town called Waldport, and we turned south on the 101 with stunning views of the Pacific Ocean.

Our first real stop was at a place called Devils Churn, which sounds quite menacing. Its a small park off the highway with a tight cove that water goes into a smashes around.

The more beautiful part of this stop was the other side of the park, with a fantastic view to the south, overlooking the surf coming into a large beach. 

Just a little taste of the highway...I kid you not, it was like this almost the entire way!

We planned on stopping at Heceta Head Lighthouse, which is supposed to be very nice, but its getting renovated so is covered in a bunch of tarps. The lighthouse wasn't the only attraction to see...

Next up, the highlight of the day for Claire...the Sealion Caves. This place is nuts...its the largest Oceanside cave in the world, and every day they have about 100 sealions inside the cave and about 200 laying out on the rocks. You can view for yourself on a webcam here http://sealioncaves.com/home/

As soon as you walk in the door, you smell popcorn, which was the highlight of the day for me. They claimed it is the "Best Popcorn in the World". Being a connoisseur, I figured I'd indulge to test their claim. No joke- it is the best popcorn I've ever had in my life. Well worth spending $2 I stole from Claire.

Apparently this place has been running since the dirty thirties, with the same family operating the caves today. A quick elevator trip takes you 200 ft below the highway to just above sea level and you see this:

It stunk. It was also loud, they bark a lot and they all seem to hate eachother, which is odd, since they're all cuddled up for most of the day. But they climb all over eachother...no respect. The Sea Lion lookout has a great view over the rock shoreline where tons of them were suntanning

The view of the coast from the lookout point was amazing



























After the Sea Lions, it was about noon so we figured we'd head into Florence, OR for lunch, which is just a few minutes down the highway. It was supposed to be a great seafood spot, so we we're looking forward to what it had to offer. What a great little town, quite touristy, but a nice place with quaint little shops & boutiques. After Googling it tonight, I've found out that 1/3 of the population is retiree's...I can see why. It made me want to retire, with a great downtown "old town" and access to miles of beaches and sand dunes. After a quick walk around town, we decided we'd eat at a restaurant called Bridgewater, which turned out to be amazing. Its in one of the original buildings in Florence, built in the early 1900s. We had great crabcakes to start, and I had a chicken sandwich, Claire had a crab melt which we're both great. I don't think I've ever said this before, but the breads and buns they used put those meals over the top. I'd go back tomorrow if we could!

Florence is the start of the Oregon Sand Dunes, which run about 50 miles down to Coos Bay. Apparently some of the dunes get as high as 300 ft. The pictures really don't do reality justice, but I'll indulge you anyway...

OK. Now we need to get some driving done! Its well after 1pm and we still have about 270 miles to go. We saw stuff like this

And this, just to give you an idea of the size of some of the sand dunes...note the guy on the 4 wheeler...you could rent them every 1/2 mile. Every freaking house had 4 wheelers for rent.

Our last planned stop, not including dinner and look-out points, was an exotic petting zoo that Claire found. Most of the animals are walking around wild and they have some very depressed exotic cats and big bears in small cages without much to do. They have a chimp that does backflips too...his name is George...him and I got along quite well. You could also pet a bear cub, lion cub and panther cub. If you're wondering why there aren't any pictures of me and animals- its because most of them were completely filthy. Claire made a few friends...

Shortly after the zoo, we crossed into California. After what the Oregon coast offered, I wasn't sure what California could do to beat it, but here goes...

We stopped here and enjoyed a nice California sunset before continuing through part of the Redwood Forest, which gets pretty darn dark late at night. We raced through some fun roads in the woods, which included passing the highway patrol going about 15 mph faster than them! Whoops. We reached our destination and settled into Eureka, California for the night.

Tomorrow morning we start at the "Avenue of Giants" which is basically a large drive through part featuring some of the biggest redwoods in North America, including 2 you can drive through! We'll reach San Fran late tomorrow afternoon!