Florence, Oregon

A couple of days ago we moved from Lincoln City to Florence……all of 72 miles, but it took almost 2 hours because of all of the bends in the road.

We are at an Elks club campground, which is all paved, but only $15 a night. Very active club with lots of stuff going on. Also a casino about a 1 1/2 miles away, which Jim and I went to yesterday. I actually won $40…..

Sunday we took a little drive north to see the sights we missed driving down……it was rainy and foggy, but we enjoyed it and took some pictures in the rain and fog……a different view of the ocean.

The Oregon coast is very spectacular, and much different from an ocean coast anywhere else in the USA, but…..the weather normally sucks this time of year and there is lots of rain and fog. Here are a few pix of the overcast day.

I know, more ocean pictures. But  we just want you to see the beauty of the coast.

Monday we did almost the same drive but it was sunny out. We went to Heceta Head lighthouse. It is another neat place that I will post a few pictures of .

Here are a few pictures of the light itself. It is what they call a freznel lens…but not sure of the spelling. It was invented by some Frenchmen in the 1800’s and magnified the light so it shone much further out to sea. It is very thick glass with lots of priszms(sp) and is made up of about 350 pieces.

currently it is an electric light, but originally it was oil, and had to be wiped down every day to get the soot off.

these last two are part of the original mechanism that made the light go around….now it is driven by an electric motor

If you want to see more pictures go to:

http://picasaweb.google.com/111116542009334943953?gsessionid=-GICk6l16jldkelRUxZLLwi

Hopefully we will move on tomorrow to Coos Bay and stay at a casino for two nights….

As usual, you can click on any picture to enlarge it.

Hope you are enjoying the trip as much as we are.

Hey…..you do know that we love you…..right!!!

Jim and Linda

Coyote rock rv park

Today we moved about a mile south the a different rv park.

We were staying at an Elks campground south of Lincoln City, we we by ourselves most of the time and while it was a nice setting we wanted to move on.

We moved about a mile south to the Siletz river and our campsite is right on the river. Much prettier views. When we pulled in the owner came in to get his camera as some fishermen just came in.

Here is the address in case you want to look it up.

1676 Silety Hwy Lincoln city, Or

www.coyote-rock.com

here is our campsite and a few pictures of the fishermen out for salmon.

this guy just came in notice the fish on the dockthis is a harbor seal, sorry its kind of blurrrrrrrrry

We only paid for one night as we were not sure how good the cell and internet service would be as we are back a couple of miles off the main road and are surrounded by hills. But everything is good including satellite signal. We will probably stay here a week.

Hope you are enjoying the trip

Love to ya

Jim and Linda

Yaquina Head light house

Yesterday we drove down to Newport, OR to see the two Yaquina head light houses. The original one was only in service for three years as the light was not far enough out in the bay and was rebuilt about a mile and a half north.The first one was built in 1873.

It has been restore by the local historical society and the Corp of Engineers. Very unusual as the light is built into the house for the light keeper and his family.

The new one has also been restored, but the house and all of the outbuildings have been destroyed. Spectacular view of the coast.

The circular stairway going up  104 steps.

 and downThe original light was oil and was very hard to keep clean because of all of the soot…this is the bridge on the south side of Newport and some pictures of the fishing fleet

and some crab pots

There are thousands of these pots in this area alone

Today we are moving about two miles south.

love to ya

Jim and Linda

DePoe Bay, Oregon

Yesterday we packed a lunch, the dogs, a couple of books to read, the camera and binoculars and drove down to Boiler bay, which is just north of the town of DePoe Bay. They have a resident pod of whales living in the area…somewhere….

I got some great shots of waves crashing on the rocks and we kept checking to see if we could see any spouts or whales. After a couple of hours of reading and looking, a couple of whale watching boats came by loaded down with passengers and we figured we had better start looking more closely.

With the binoculars we spotted a spout and finally the back of a whale….a few minutes more and another spout and more of the whale and finally the fins came up in the air as it went down……

Did not get a picture of the whale, it happened too fast.

I took a lot of pictures of the same area to show you the different looks when the waves are crashing onto the rocks.

Enjoy

Our 18-55mm zoom lens kind of died on us (the motor in the lens is malfunctioning) so we ordered a new lens on line. It showed up today. Other than that, no news for today. We are just vegging, reading and playing Zinga poker on Facebook.

Take care

love to ya

Jim and Linda