Oregon dunelands

After a fantastic evening yesterday (high school football match - brilliant way to engage the whole school in a sporting event - followed by a lovely meal at a local restaurant) we got up and explored Florence this morning.

It's a nice small town on the river, fairly touristy but not too much. We found a lovely little coffee shop for breakfast, and drank our coffee on the dockside in the sunshine. This really is the way to live! After a bit more mooching around and a little shopping - salt water taffy - doesn't live up to its hype in our opinion - we headed south on 101 but only about a mile as we were booked on a dune buggy expedition. What a fantastic experience - yes, it was chilly and windy, but I've never been driven over miles and miles of sand dunes, sometimes at perilous angles. It's a huge expanse, covering many many square miles, and incorporating a state highway along the sealine.

Then, our dune buggying done, we headed south again on 101, through Charleston and on to Bandon where we had booked a room with two sea-views (!). Except that when we got there the fog had also arrived and we could barely see the hotel from the car park let alone the sea from the room... ah well.

We found ourselves in a sports bar for dinner - Oregon Ducks were beating Washington State, in what I guess you could call a derby match. The ducks won, but it was a close thing... Go Ducks!!