Hiking to Cape Arago

Laura Domela — Wed, 08 May 2013 23:41:00 +0000

This afternoon we headed back up to Sunset Bay State Park so we could hike the trails out to Simpson Reef and the overlook where you see (and hear) hundreds of sea lions and seals. The hike was about four miles out and four miles back, and it was stunning. We did some cool stuff on the way to our trailhead, but I'm going to show you the pretty pictures of our hike before I tell you about that stuff.

The trail winds around the cliffs, down to some beaches, then back up to the cliffs. It's a good hike. Not hard (unless you book it so you can do the whole 8 or so miles before it gets dark, since you started after 3pm), and the trail is really a nice trail (unless you take those couple of spurs that go through super thick brush and you end up wondering "is this even a trail?" several times but then you come out at a clearing and hook back up with the "real" trail). Oh yeah. Pictures.

That's the Cape Arago lighthouse you can see, tiny in the distance (above).

Trail along the bluffs:

Check out these amazing rock formations:

On our way back we decided to go through the Shore Acres State Park, which is a large beautiful botanical garden. (Free.)

More macro fun with plants along the trail:

This is the flower in the middle of the huge plants from dinosaur movies:

Okay, so: great hike, highly recommended. I didn't take any photos of the seals or sea lions because they were too far away to get anything decent with my 35mm lens, but last time we were here I took some killer shots with my longer lens and you can see them here if you want to.

Before we headed north for our hike, we went into town (Bandon) to grab a couple more fish tacos at Tony's Crab Shack and then we thought we'd check out the grand opening of the Face Rock Creamery that was happening today at 1pm. Ribbon cutting, cheese tasting, ice cream making, the works. Apparently cheese making in Bandon is kind of a big deal.

However, when we got there, the place was PACKED. It's like the entire town had come to this event. There was no parking for blocks, and there were hundreds of people with a very long line out the door. We opted not to wait for cheese, but just took a couple of photos so you could see what a big deal this place is. We'll come back and try the cheese next time.

After not tasting cheese, we happened to see these two tall ships out in the Coquille River:

A little quick Googling on my iPhone led me to learn that these two ships are "the brig Lady Washington, the Official Ship of Washington State, and the topsail ketch Hawaiian Chieftain" and that the tall ship Lady Washington is the ship featured in Macklemore's new music video “Can’t Hold Us,” which you can check out here. (We'd already seen it.)

From the Coos Bay local news:

The Hawaiian Chieftain was the first of two historic replica Tall Ships to arrive in Coos Bay following a journey north along the West Coast from Crescent City, CA. The Lady Washington, which gained some movie fame from the first of the Pirates of the Caribbean series, arrived second. They are moored at the City of Coos Bay docks downtown and will offer dockside tours as well as mock battle adventures on the bay. The two ships will be here through May 13th and then depart for Astoria for stops along the Columbia River.

Anyway, the ships are about to start a tour of the Columbia River ports (May 15 – July 2) and the full port schedule is here. They give tours and even public sailings. Fun!

Also, next time we're here I think we may rent a couple of crab rings from Tony and try our hand at catching our own crab.

You just take 'em right out back onto this dock here (apparently a good spot for successful crabbing!) and Tony will cook 'em up for you back at the crab shack.

Oh hey! Guess what we're having for dinner tonight! More crab.

Florence to Bandon-by-the-Sea

Laura Domela — Mon, 06 May 2013 23:50:48 +0000

We stayed at my (100 year old) great aunt Zelma's last night in Florence, Oregon and visted with her, her daughter Dolores, and my mom. It was a short but nice visit. The neighborhood where Zelma lives (gated, near the water in Florence) has a few nice RV spots for visitors and when we're visiting we always have a great spot that's just around the corner from Zelma's house:

There's a huge rec center area right next to these RV spots where there are two pools, tennis courts, some kind of long skinny game you play in the dirt or sand with some balls (?) and a rec room with pool tables and ping pong. I let Kevin beat me at 5 or 6 games of ping pong.

We headed out around noon today aiming to go about an hour and a half south toward Cape Arago. We've stayed in this in this area before and felt like we'd like to explore it more. Since we were already this far, what's another hour or so south? (Remember, this is how our 1 month trip turned into 4…good thing I said I'd be home for Mother's Day!)

We'd mapped out Oceanside RV Resort because it looked like it had good Wi-Fi and was the closest to the beach, but then when we got there, the vibe was just so-so (totally fine, path to the beach, nice people, but it just didn't grab us), so we opted to head a bit further and check out the state park at Sunset Bay. It's in a great location with tons of hiking trails along the rugged coastline, and it sounded more like what we were after. We found a great campsite in D loop and pulled in and went back to the Airstream to see if we could get decent internet with our regular in-Airstream system (before we committed and paid the fees), and after quite a bit of trying with no luck, we thought maybe the A loop might fare better since it was closer to the main road. Nope. Dangit. No AT&T. No Verizon. No Sprint. Even with external antennaes and booster amplifiers. This campground is in a little cove/canyon though, so it's not that surprising.

We tried the only other campground out here (besides the marina/parking lot at Charleston, OR) called Bastendorff Beach Park (a county park next door) and we had better service there, but no beach access and still kind of a so-so vibe. Oh heck. Let's just go a half hour further and stay at Bullards Beach State Park in Bandon. We can drive up in the afternoon one day after we get some work done and do some of the hiking back at Cape Arago that we hoped to do.

So that's where we are now. We're parked next to another Airstream (a 19' Bambi from Quebec). The couple is on an 8 month trip around the U.S. (started in March of this year) and it sounds like they're having a blast so far.

We set up camp, did some work, and then headed into Bandon to get some dinner and some groceries. We stopped at Tony's Crab Shack for their delicious fish tacos, and picked up two dozen fresh oysters, two pounds of Manila clams, and two fresh Dungeness crabs. That oughta keep us busy for the next few days!

Cape Arago – Riveted

Hiking to Cape Arago

Florence to Bandon-by-the-Sea