Reedsport and Florence, Oregon (Day 4)

This morning we woke up and drove back up 101 to an elk viewing point we had passed the evening before when driving into town. The night before at dusk we were able to see a number of elk close to the road, but by 9 something am when we arrived, they were all quite far away, back by the tree line. Thankfully I had binoculars so we could see them a little bit better, and I put my phone's camera against the binoculars with zoom on to get some blurry pictures of the elk.

Elk viewing point

Elk, spotted through my binoculars

From there, we navigated to the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area which actually took us to the headquarters for the area instead of the area itself. That said, I was glad it did because while I was looking at the signage outside of the building (it was closed due to COVID-19), a lady came out and helped me figure out where we should go.

We headed out for Umpqua Lighthouse State Park where she said we would find a parking lot with a great view of the dunes that didn't require any hiking. We drove through some windy roads of beautiful woods before poof! Just like that, the trees cleared and we saw the little white lighthouse, more trees below the cliff, and the angry ocean.

Umpqua Lighthouse

I was bummed that we couldn't really see the dunes from the spot, so we drove on to see what else we would find. Our next stop in the park was at South Umpqua Jetty. We parked in a mostly empty lot and made our way to the beach. It DID NOT disappoint. The beach was totally fascinating, covered in driftwood... really drift-trunks! When you looked back toward the parking lot you could see the forest, sand, then grassy area, and all of the driftwood. It really was amazing. 

Driftwood on the beach at Umpqua Lighthouse State Park

mom and dad on the beach

The ocean had a whole angry thing going on--the water looked CRAZY and so white! I'd seen when checking the weather that there was an advisory to basically not go out on the water today. That said, we could see a coast guard helicopter hovering over the water very close to the shore and when I walked down to the beach and up over some dunes, there was a ship below it! Someone else on the beach said they thought it was the coast guard.. but boy I was happy to not be on that ship, it looked like it was in danger of crashing into the jetty, running ashore, capsizing.... something bad.

When we finished up at the South Umpqua Jetty we went back to continue down the road along the beach and see if we could find the dunes... and we did! Oddly the dunes had been behind us, between the forest and hills and the beach. This area of sand stretches for 40 miles along the Oregon Coast and is extremely popular for riding ATVs and sandboarding--we saw a group of ATVers go by during the few minutes we were there, even though it's the offseason.

After seeing the dunes, we made our way back up to Highway 101 and headed north for Florence. On the way, we stopped at a trailhead that turned out to have a great view of the dunes, evergreens, and water.

The map as we continued our drive was pretty fascinating--there was water going all over like little capillaries throughout the land.

When we got to Florence we stopped at Heceta Beach, hoping there'd be something pretty to see. There wasn't, just a normal-looking beach but cold and with low visibility, so we continued on.

We stopped at a couple of scenic overlooks, then finally arrived at Heceta Head Lighthouse State Scenic Viewpoint where we grabbed our trekking poles for the .5-mile hike up to the top of the cliff. Even though the weather was totally different than it was in August when I first visited, it was still gorgeous and so worth it. Amazingly you could still see blackberries of every stage on the vines--green, red, black, and shriveled-up black!

This time the little room at the base of the lighthouse was open which was nice, it had some brochures on the area and info. I also noticed something I hadn't the time before--there's a trail that runs above the lighthouse on the cliff! I decided to climb that trail and mom went with me--I was SO grateful for the trekking poles that allowed her to do a hike she NEVER would have been able to do without. Those things are amazing! The view from above was beautiful. We could see the Fresnel lens of the lighthouse pretty well and get beautiful pictures of it against the water.

Angry waves

Heceta Head lighthouse from above

Heceta Head Lighthouse from above

On the way back down we stopped by the gift shop and mom grabbed a postcard+stamp to send to her sister. Then back at the base, I walked up the beach and a little way up the river to see the other side of the bridge--something I had been dying to do back in August. While the high tide was scheduled for 4 pm and it was 2:40 something, there were still a few moments where a strong wave would come in and push upstream against the river.. and one big wave sent me and the one other person on the beach running for higher ground to miss getting our feet drenched!

mom hiking up above the lighthouse

mom and me

the trail to go above the lighthouse

the beach

the beach

After Heceta Head, we backtracked a little bit to the Sea Lion Caves. I was relieved they were still open, but SO disappointed to learn that the sea lions are still gone! It seems they leave in August, return in December. So I JUST missed them with each of my trips. Nevertheless, we got tickets and made the journey 300 feet below Highway 101 to see the caves.

Heceta Head Lighthouse in the distance was swallowed up by fog

Trail down to the sea lion caves elevator

After we finished there, it was raining pretty hard so we went back to Florence, booked a place to stay, and dropped dad off while mom and I went to a couple of thrift stores. We finished off the evening with dinner at Waterside Depot, a restaurant Vidur, Rachel, and I had tried to go to back in August that was cram-packed and fully booked. If you ever want to go there, regardless of the day or time of the year, make reservations! We were lucky enough that they fit us in but for a bit thought we'd be turned away. We finished off the night sharing a wonderful banana split.

banana split