July 15th

We went camping with Laura on wednesday. The coast is truly beautiful here: rocky cliffs, big waves and sea lions. Tourists, too! I got really jealous seeing all the bicyclists touring up and down the highway, loaded with gear. Maybe sometime we can do that... We stopped at a place called Strawberry Hill to paly in the tide pools. Lots of cool critters in there! Love the way the sea anemones pull back when you try to touch them. Also got a great view of the sea lions sunning on the rocks.

Then Laura took us to her favorite seafood place in Florence -- Mo's. We ate clam chowder and looked out on the bay. Later on we bought some fresh salmon steaks to grill for dinner. We drove down more spectacular coast to Sunset Beach near Coos Bay to camp at the state park there. The place was covered with wild blackberry and blueberry bushes. No ripe berries -- need to come back in August for that. Mmmm. We checked out the bay that evening. Who ever knew you could have so much fun with kelp!

July 16th

We said our goodbye to Laura and headed south to find more mysteries of modern tourism. We spent the whole day on higway 101 winding our way down the coast. The scenery gets more spectacular towards California&emdash;big rocks and crashing waves, isolated beaches and strange fog banks.

We stopped at Prehistoric Gardens in Port Orford, OR. Lifelike replicas of dinosaurs in the redwood forest. So educational! See photos below for full dinosuaric effect. Further down the highway we saw the Trees of Mystery in Klamath, California. The giant statue of Paul Bunyan has a funny little man inside who talks to passers by, mostly telling little kids not to step on his shoes and stuff like that. He can also wave his big hand and wink. NEAT-O! We wandered on down through the redwoods and the Avenue of the Giants with lots of other cheesy stuff like the drive-through tree. Roadside America has some great information HERE about the Redwood Exploitation Zone. We camped in the state park in the Humboldt Redwooods under the big trees.

	The Oregon Coast!
	Robby and Laura overlooking the pacific.
	Lynne enjoying the sea.
	Lynne's strange little friend, "Kelpy"
	Our breakfast
	Saying goodbye before Laura went back to Eugene
	Another gorgeous day
	The coast
	Prehistoric Gardens! Harkens one to the time when giants roamed the earth...
	Us at Trees of Mystery. The giant fiberglass Paul Bunyon welcomes us to his land of long ago.
	Paul waves and jokes with visitors from all over the world. Even us!
	Our camp in the redwoods