Comfort Inn North Bend

We started on Highway 101 and traveled down the coast. It is incredibly beautiful here and the ocean views are stunning. Its amazing how far out to sea you can actually see from this coastal road - its breathtaking. The pine forests are huge and its non-stop scenery for the whole trip.

We started on Highway 101 from Lincoln Beach in ...

... at the Mill Casino about 4 miles from Wild Mare. Then, Saturday night we dry camped at Wild Mare, but returned to the RV park at the Mill Casino, this time with full hook-ups for Sunday night.

The time at Wild Mare was full of great food, campfires and great company. They rode horses a couple of times a day and also had a bunch of ATVs for fun on the sand dunes.

... the dunes, but it did not work for us. Hiked through and rolled and ran down them instead. Headed next to Cape Arago for a picnic lunch and found an incredible high vantage point where we could watch the gray whales spouting and rolling as they fed. We ate as they ate. Even better viewing than yesterday. Saw masses of Harbor Seals, California Sea Lions, Stellar Sea ...

... much of the west, Oregon's base rock seems to be
sandstone, but here it is overlaid with multiple layers of lava from the numerous volcanoes that have been so active in this state's geological history.

My route took me through the Blue Mountain Range – sandstone covered with loess (windblown soil from north and east primarily) and pines, cedars, junipers with grass meadows. As I've mentioned previously, Oregon does not have extensive natural ground water ...

... br>
We arrived at about lunch time we stopped in at the tourist information and spoke to a lovely old man who gave us a map and told us to go on a drive around the coast to see the seals and national park coastline... which we did. However, compared to what we'd already seen it's not much to write home about.

After some more driving (not like we hadn't done enough) we arrived at our motel. We were staying ...

... that we choosen.  As soon as we clicked over to Diesel our Westy kept trucking. No biggie, thought we just change out the oil at our next chance. We arrive in Seattle and it was time to fuel up with Diesel. Panic attack number two begins... I fill up the tank and Diesel begins to drip quite steadily from the bottom of the tank. What the Hell!!!   My first reaction was to go straight to a mechanic, but it quickly becomes apparent that at 5:30pm everything is going to be closed ...

... to help fix it. Ron and Ken Miura, who is also traveling with his family Sallie, Nikki, Andrew and Lauren, help me by fixing my awning. Thanks so much guys, it is still working great!   Ron and Brenda are such dear people, we went over and visited their RV, met their dog. Visiting the old town of Brandon we met them again and hung out for a while. When they left it felt like our friends were leaving.  The same day we met Ron and Brenda in Old Town we also met the ...

Day 16 - October 2 Hills and rain are all today held for us. It rained as we conquered 7 Devil's Road.(Each hill is numbered a different devil as you make your way up a windy ridge) We arrived here in Bandon around 12:30 and decided we would stay at a hostel for the night being that we're about to get wet for the next three days ...

Day 15 - October 1 TWO WEEKS ON THE ROAD! First encounter of a hiker at the hiker/biker sights!! We met our neighbor right before we were about to finish off the day with a few games of cards and head to bed. Little did we realize he was going to keep us up for an hour and a half! We don't know what his name was, but we know his whole life story for the most part. We found out he's doing ...

... favourite Wal-Mart) - just past the town the sun broke out and we pulled into a State Park (South Beach) where we walked along the beach. There were a bunch of surfers in the car-park with a great collection of dogs. We were feeling pretty good at this point but listeners....after Newport the Oregon coast kinda loses it. We were hoping to stay at Florence - but all the coast appears to be owned by private citizens. The town was very tacky and the hotels nothing special. We ...