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TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
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And so on into Orgeon, and the land of the Giant Redwoods.
Before any Californians get upset, I KNOW that you have these beautiful, ancient, enormous trees yourselves, but it is Oregon that can claim the dubious attraction of the "drive-thru tree". Hmmm. As you can see from the photo, we tried to take Ernie the car though the tree, but I think that it must have been made for sleek 1950's motors rather than our Flabby Ford Wagon. That didn't stop some folks behind us trying to get their massive truck through - with some interesting last minute reversing as they realised that if we couldn't fit, it was unlikely that they could.
The Oregon coast is indeed stunning, and it is heartening to know that in the early 1900's the State Government declared all coastal access public. Thus any of the pristine beaches are open to all, pretty impressive I think. A lot of Oregon is declared a "tsunami risk zone" due to its proximity to the San Andreas fault and its low lying topograpy. And a couple of nights ago, whilst staying in the beautiful Gold Beach, we diligently read all the leaflets plaecd in our motel room on the subject.
We didn't expect to get our evacuation plan tested, when the tsunami sirens went off at 3:30am. We lept out of bed, grabbed what we could, and jumped into the car, heading inland 5 miles to high ground.
Then we stopped, and waited. No one else had stirred.
We waited some more, and then poked our noses back towards downtown. Nothing had moved. Surely we weren't the only ones to hear the siren? Upon calling the local police, it seemed that the volunteer fire department had been using a short blast on the siren to call for more firefighters... I guess at least we have practiced our route!
We carried on up the coast to a sweet old fashioned village called Florence, in the Oregon dunes area. After a fanstastic meal (the best for a long while!) and evening at the cafe by the bridge, we felt strong enough the next day to try out the local sport of sandsurfing. To the ininitiated, this is snowboarding down sand dunes. Torrential rain didn't put us off (well, not for the first few runs anyhow) but unfortunately meant that conditions weren't optimal for getting up serious speeds (well, maybe on reflection that was fortunate!). A good half hour's entertainment anyhow, and we will definitely try that sport again!
Now we are heading back inland to revisit Hood River for a few days.
R&V
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