Florence

It's not quite Florence, Italy, but Oregon's version was beautiful.  I was looking forward to every aspect of this trip until we pulled up to the hotel and Nick opened the van door to run in and get our room key.  The wild practically ripped the door off of the van and anything close to the door flew out, never to be seen again.  Fortunately for me, Nick was just big enough to stay on the ground.

The wind was pretty vicious for most of our time there, but we found that is was lesser in the mornings and picked up by the evening.  We tried to make the most of the dips in the wind and of the sand, but truth be told, we were not out by the ocean as much as I had planned.  Even still, we were out enough to catch some pictures worth posting!

These first few I got from the balcony of our room while Nick unloaded the car.  What a view!

 I wanted to get in some beach time that very night.  We did not stay out long.

 Bethelle and Rigby.

 These were taken at a beach a little north of our hotel.  There was a bit of a cove here and it protected us from some of the wind.

Jeff and Janae arrived the day after us.  They had two boys and one on the way.  With them, we drove a little north to the sea lion caves.

 To get to the caves, you go through the gift shop, down the stairs, out to this path, down to the building at the end, then take an elevator down, down, down to the caves.

Inside the cave, you look though a large opening out to where the sea lions are.  It's hard to tell in the picture, but they are that pile on the rock in the middle of the water.  There is a video camera in the cave that helps to see them closer, but even without it, they were impressive.  The sea lions come naturally to this location.  It is such a treat to see nature on its own terms, rather than in a zoo or with some other bait or change.  The location is along the coast highway, but I-5 it is not, so we were surprised at the number of people there on a random summer Tuesday.  An employee that we talked to said that they get the most visitors in the summer, but the sea lions are the most numerous and impressive in the winter.  I don't know when I'll happen to be on the Oregon coast in the winter, but I'd like to see that.

 A short walk in the other direction from the gift shop takes you to this view point.  Do you see the slugs in this picture?  Nope.  More sea lions.  There must be hundreds of them there.

 You would think that I would have taken a better picture of Jeff and Janae, but this is all you get.  Sorry Janae.