Just outside of Florence is the beginning of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, the largest expanse of coastal sand dunes in North America. When author Frank Herbert visited the area in the late 1950s, it put some ideas in his head which came to fruition in the novel Dune. The dunes flow for 40 miles (54 km) south to North Bend, Oregon.
The dunes
After leaving the dunes behind, our next stop was 27 miles (43 km) south in Bandon, a town named by an early settler for his birthplace in Ireland. It's home to the West Coast Game Park, where we stopped for an hour or two. The park had primates, big cats, and bears, which were kept in large cages or enclosures, but it also had deer, goats, llamas, and the like which roamed freely about the park.
It was spring, and some of the non-human primates were engaged in activities which would be rather frowned upon if done in public by human primates. Parents quickly moved their children along or covered their eyes.
The park had a supervised petting area, and the first animal available for petting was a snow leopard cub, which my mother got to hold. She said she could feel how strong he was, and he was a handful to deal with. There was also a black bear cub. In a nearby cage, a monkey named Joe took a liking to my grandmother, chattering at her and then looking sad when we walked away to the next area.
My mother with the snow leopard cub
Mama snow leopard keeping watch on her cub from an adjacent cage
Joe
The animals moving freely about the park were friendly and easy to interact with. One of the llamas took a liking to me, and followed me everywhere. I was a little wary at first, considering llamas have a tendency to spit. My clean white t-shirt was dirtied by an adorable baby goat who stood up and put his muddy front hooves on my shirt.
Llama
In one enclosure, a male tiger paced back and forth by the fence. He was close enough I could have stuck my hand through the fence and touched him, but having my arm ripped off would have spoiled the trip. I tried to take a photo of the bears, but one of them kept turning around at just the wrong moments, so I ended up with several photos of its behind.
Tiger by the fence
Two bears, one an uncooperative subject
Back on the road, our next stop was at Cape Blanco, 17 miles (27 km) south of the game park. One of two places claimed as the westernmost point in the contiguous United States, it's also home to a lighthouse built in 1870. The lighthouse is situated on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, where violent winds blowing in from the ocean made it difficult to walk or even talk. My grandmother had to hold on to the car door because the wind threatened to carry all 100 pounds of her away. A seagull tried to take off but found itself slammed back to the ground. It stood up, dazed, but didn't try to take off again.
Cape Blanco Light
Driving back to the main highway, we saw a herd of sheep in a large fenced in enclosure. I honked as we drove past, and we witnessed an explosion of woolly mammals as sheep bolted in every direction. I hadn't meant to frighten them.
South of Cape Blanco are some beautiful ocean vistas, where land, sea, and sky conspire to fill you with a sense of awe. When there isn't any other traffic, it's easy to feel like an explorer in a vast unexplored terrain.
Pacific Ocean, Oregon coast, from south of Cape Blanco
Pacific Ocean, Oregon coast, from south of Cape Blanco
Pacific Ocean
70 miles (113 km) later, we crossed the state line into California. An exciting moment for me. California was an unseen country to my eyes. My mother started crying. She said it was because she suddenly realized just how far from home we were and how much further we had to go before we returned home.
My grandmother was the onle one of us who had been to California before. She stayed with her artist aunt Lily Jane McIntosh in San Francisco twice in the 1940s, first in 1942 for the summer, and then again in 1946 to await my grandfather's discharge from the United States Army after World War II.
Shortly thereafter, we were driving through one of a series of redwood forests that are now part of Redwood National and State Parks, which the United Nations declared to be a World Heritage Site in 1980. We stopped several times to see the forest. Big trees surrounded us. It felt peaceful in the forest.
Double exposure of my mother and grandmother with the forest
Forest
A tree, viewed straight up
98 miles (158 km) south of the state line is Arcata, California, where we had reservations at the Super 8 Motel. We ate dinner at a local restaurant before retiring for the night.
Total Travel Distance: 274 miles (441 km)
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