Yes it is wonderful returning to your home state after traveling around Canada and the USA for nearly a year. Now we are not back in Scappoose, but we are slowly working our way up the Oregon coast. We spent a couple days in Harris Beach State Park in Brookings. We did several bike rides around Brookings and the weather has been just fabulous. We then moved to Sunset Bay State Park near Coos Bay. There we rode the bicycles out to Cape Arago and then we did some serious hill climbing into the Seven Devils area South of Coos Bay. Today we moved to Lake Woahink, to a small commercial park near Florence. We completed another ride around the lake this afternoon. It is just so wonderful having warm sunny weather we can’t stand to sit inside.
Just prior to moving into Oregon we made a quick, one day trip to Oregon Caves National Monument with our friends Judy and Henry Lahore. We have lived in Oregon since 1974 and we have never made it to this wonderful natural attraction before. Of course being such decrepit old fossils ourselves, we got to tour the cave for free, but the normal price of eight dollars each is really a bargain. There was only the four of us for the two pm tour. Our guide, (his name is Tom,) was so knowledgeable and patient that our personal hour and a half tour stretched out to two hours.
If you come through this corner of Oregon, (Grants Pass and Cave Junction,) you need to take the time to visit. There are some commercial campgrounds in Cave Junction that can handle any size rig, and a couple Forest Service campgrounds along the 20 mile dead end road up to the caves. We made it all the way to the caves in our 34 foot motor home, but I wouldn’t recommend this during peak season. They don’t have a very large parking lot at the end of the road. The grand old lodge, built by the CCC in the 30’s, was just about to open when we were there.
I will place a couple of our cave photos on the web site, but these do no justice to the natural beauty of the caves and you get none of the sound effects of the rushing and dripping water.
Time to send this along, so we will close with love for all.
Gary and Judy
