Saturday, 1 September

Labor Day weekend. We are close to Gene's sister's place so we decide to head straight for there. Well, not actually right away. We decided to look at a couple more things on the coast before we headed inland.

The main thing we wanted to see was the Oregon dunes. The closest place to see them was the Umpqua light, so we backtracked a few miles and went in there. We were on a bluff and we could see some sand (and hear countless ATVs running all over) but mostly it was trees. Gene talked with some locals and found out how to get down to a  parking lot on the beach. This was more like it. There were huge dunes behind the beach.

The parking lot was filled with every possible configuration of off-road vehicle on two, three, or four wheels. Meanwhile there were vehicles running all over the dunes and making a racket. Talking with the "host" for the area we were informed that this would be the busiest weekend of the year and would remain so until Monday afternoon.

We were amazed to realize that whole pine forests were growing on the dunes themselves.

When we left the dunes we drove down to the town of Bandon. Gene had been there several years before and was amazed at the driftwood. It was still there.

All the beaches that had driftwood usually had some little structures, but this beach had what looks like a hut or something.






Time was marching on so we headed across the mountains to Ruch. We arrived in time to meet Lynne, Gene's sister, for a nice dinner in historic Jacksonville. We managed to find Lynne's house and get set up after dark, and  here we will stay for a few days.