Florence Oregon

We are now in Florence Oregon at Jessie M. Honeyman State Park. Named for a lady that spent a lifetime in conservation and pursuits that saved nature for folks like us to enjoy. Her park is filled with larger old growth timber native to this area. Mostly Dug Fir and Western Hemlocks and Sitka Spruces.

These forests are pretty amazing life forms in and of themselves. One of the things that I find amazing about them is that the Doug Firs take up half of the water they will need for the next day tonight. Now that’s something that you’ve got to stop for a minute to wrap your brain around. Just how much water is that? I certainly don’t know, but I do know that the Doug fir directly behind our portacrib is about 8’ in diameter at the base and at least 120’ tall. And there’s thousands of them in this State park. How thirsty are they?

And then there are the Sword ferns that are growing at the base of them. These plants grow for 8 years before you even know they are there. Some of the ones Forrest and I saw while we walked the Sand dunes trail were 6’ tall. You do the math……..

Nice quiet park. No TV, cable or otherwise, no phone signal, no wifi. Downright primitive. J The park sits right outside the Oregon Dunes National Park. It’s miles and miles of sand dunes. Picture what you think the Sahara desert might look like and that’s what you have. Dunes a couple hundred feet tall stacked on top of each other. Awesome sight. Forrest, Karen and I hiked through a couple of them hunting a geocache yesterday. No more dune hiking for us….. :-)

Our neighbors here are nice though. They baked a great apple pie using local stuff and brought us a couple slices last night. They are Jenny and Lana. Nice folks that have been a pleasure to chat with from time to time while we are in this area. As a general rule, the folks out here have been really nice, as long as you discount the Canadians. Canadians are sticks up the butt pains in the place where the stick goes. I think we should close BOTH borders and keep both the beaners and the Mounties where they belong…. But that’s just me……..

So we are in the territory of the Siuslaw tribe except that the white man has screwed them just as bad as he did the rest of the natives. Well, except for those tribes that are making billions with their casino's. Now THEY are screwing the white man. Fitting turn of events in my not so humble opinion...

We are camped near the Siuslaw river. Lots of Chinook and Coho running so the river's are full of boats, and seals.

So what have we seen?

This is the Haceta head lighthouse. It sits on Haceta Head..... no really it does...... but there's also a really cool bay there....

It was really foggy while we were there too. Karen got a cool shot of the bridge we had to cross to get here...




And this shot of the bay from up near the lighthouse. Karen had to hike a half mile up to see it. Forrest and I waited down by the bay...

Those blackthings..... those are loons..... that white stuff.... well, it ain't paint..... smells like poo.....

This is the Umpqua Head lighthouse. It's south of Florence a bit off the mouth of the Umpqua river. Another foggy morning along the coast.....

As you can see, it sits ON a Coast Guard base. This one actually has base housing. There has been a Coastie station in every town we have stayed in here in Oregon so far.

Well, that'll about do it for this run. Will be doing another post for where we are actually sitting right now.