This morning, before we checked out, we made a trip to Nye Beach across from the hotel to check out the Pacific Ocean closeup. It was a long walk down the stairs to the sand, sure to be a longer walk back up the stairs when we were done. The beach was beautiful, but much colder and less inviting than Florida beaches. The sand was nice, but the water was ice cold. Much to cold to go in, but since the outside temperature was hovering around 61 degrees, there wasn't much chance of that. There were also lots of jellyfish in the sand since it was about low tide. So we walked around a bit, took a few pictures and headed back to the hotel to check out.
     First stop on the agenda was to backtrack a couple of miles to check out the Yaquina Head Lighthouse . We really didn't want the interior tour, since my fear of heights doesn't lend itself well to climbing lighthouses. We just wanted to check out the grounds around the lighthouse which was very picturesque. The seascape was everything you would expect in a west coast lighthouse. There were wildflowers, birds, and craggy rock formations. We watched some of the movie at the Visitors Center and took lots of pictures. There was a hike available up a very steep mountain nearby to get an overlook picture of the lighthouse point, but we had lots of plans for the day, and decided it was time to move on.
   The plan for the day was to continue down US-101S for about 100 miles, to Coos Bay, and then turn east to Roseburg to be ready for Crater Lake National park tomorrow. We made one last stop in Newport for a cup of Starbucks, and headed down the first 50 mile leg to Florence. It turns out there must be a hundred "waysides" between Newport and Florence, as there are many towns and individual beaches in between . We stopped at some of the more interesting, and took pictures. Others we just slowed down as we passed to get a good look.
     I can't say enough about what a wonderful road is the 101. The scenery is always changing from seashore to forest, sometimes the road is level with the beach, sometimes it climbs several hundred feet above the beach. Some beaches are sandy, others are rocky, and others like the one back at Yaquina Head are actually rounded stones. All of it is very beautiful, and we could easily spend the entire day just stopping at each of the waysides. It was almost 2:00 when we finally made it the 50 miles to Florence, and the first planned stop at Sea Lion Caves.
     Sea Lion Caves has been around as an attraction since the 1930's.   Essentially, it is a huge sea cave that for some reason is extremely attractive to sea lions, especially in winter and spring. By summer, it has mostly emptied out of sea lions, but the central island in the middle of the cave still had lots of sea lions to see . They also had a 6-minute video explaining everything, and it showed that in mating season, all of the cave rocks, everywhere are covered in sea lions. For years, you had to walk down hundreds of steps to get to the viewing area, now they have an elevator to make the job much easier. You view the sea lions from an adjacent cave, and there is a wire barrier preventing you from entering the actual sea cave and disturbing the sea lions. The bars on the viewing area were spaced fae enough apart to make picture taking easy.
     Sea Lion Caves was at the northern part of Florence, at the southern end of Florence are the Oregon Sand Dunes. I had read about the sand dunes while planning the trip, and when I was getting the motorcycle serviced in The Dalles, the service manager strongly suggested that I rent and ATV and check it out. We were a little leery of renting an ATV and heading out exploring on our own, but when we looked at TripAdvisor, they recommended taking a sandrail tour with Sand Dune Frontier . As we pulled into Sand Dune Frontier, a group of 3 sandrail buggies was just returning, and everyone was so excited about the ride.
     Sand Dune Frontier offers 3 ways to enjoy the dunes: you can rent an ATV and explore on your own, they have a big lumbering buggy that holds about 30-40 people and goes super slow through the dunes, or they have sandrails, the largest holding 7 people plus a driver, and the smallest holding 3 people plus a driver. The sandrails go fast! So, of course we chose the sandrail tour. The problem was that the tour is for 30 minutes, and with a limited number of sandrails and drivers, we would have ton wait for about an hour and a half. Jody didn't really want to wait, and I found out later, she had never seen the reactions of the people who had just returned from the previous trip. But we finally decided, why not? So we headed over to the snack bar to wait our turn.
     Sure enough, it was close to 4:30 when we finally got on the buggies. Jody and I got the middle seat on the big yellow sandrail that held 7 passengers . This one was powered by a 4.3 liter Buick V-6, some of the smaller ones used Subaru power. The moment we hit the first dune, the excitement was electric. Jody and I looked at each other and couldn't believe how much fun this was. Even better than a roller coaster! I knew at once that this was the far better way for an inexperienced operator to ride the dunes. As an experienced driver, he could run full speed up the dune, and he knew what would be on the other side. Driving myself, I would have been more timid where I didn't know what was on the other side so I didn't end up driving off of a cliff. The professional driver also knew the limits of his equipment, so he could drive faster, make more dangerous turns, and ride pitched on the side of the dune without worrying about rollover.
     And drive he did! Faster and faster, up and over dunes, down impossible slopes, sliding sideways on the sides of hills. racing along other sandrails, all the time faster and faster. It was so much fun! And like Jody said afterwards, it was just exciting, at no time were we ever afraid . There was a couple in the sandrail next to us that we had been talking to while we were waiting that were in their 80's. They had a hard time getting into and out of the sandrail, but had no problem enjoying the ride. He said he and his wife had been doing this for decades. It's hard to believe how quickly the 30 minutes had passed when the ride was over. We both decided that this was the most fun thing we had done so far on this trip.
     It was after 5:00 when we finished up at Sand Dune Frontier, and we still had to make to Roseburg tonight. So we cut short our adventure down US-101S, and turned east to Roseburg. We headed east on OR-38E to OR-138E which both make up the Umpqua Scenic Byway and follow the Umpqua River. They were both excellent motorcycle roads, and the remaining hundred miles to Roseburg passed quickly. A quick turn onto WA-99S and we were in Roseburg about 7:00.
     Luckily there was a Mom & Pop Restaurant called Elmer's next door, along with a Cannabis Dispensary. We skipped on the Cannabis and had sandwiches and burgers at Elmer's. Tomorrow, the plan is to head over to Crater Lake National Park. We will definitely ride the lop road around the lake, and we will try to take a boat ride, but we probably won't be able to get a reservation.

159.4 miles today
10,053.1 miles total

0.0 gallons today
238.770 gallons total