Oregon! ! !

We needed somewhere to ride, since we've been carrying new bikes (our others got stolen in Vallejo, CA).   So we rode down to the local "small animal" zoo in Eureka.  You can see it was fun.

After spending two nights in Eureka, we headed up the California coast, through state and national redwood parks.

Partly to be sure that we'd have a place to stay in Oregon (we'd heard it is hard to find good campsites because they are all reserved) and partly to just stop traveling for a while, we took a campsite in Gold Beach, Oregon where the Rogue River comes to the Pacific.   Here there are many fishermen in small boats at the mouth of the river, trying to, and catching, salmon as they go up the river.   Already, we have traveled south again to stop at the many parts of a national scenic corridor along the ocean here.

The picture below shows my favorite spot - a group of natural arches of stone in the ocean where water is rushing back and forth through.  Alongside is a beach you can get to.  I hope we get back there before we leave here.

At another beach, where we had a picnic, people were hovering over a seal on the beach, gently trying to cover itself with sand.   We learned from a knowledgeable  person there that it was an old female seal, there to die.   So many of us left it there, we hope, in peace.

Today, Tuesday, the 11th, we drove up to Cape Blanca, the westernmost point in the lower states.  Then stopped back in the "oldest town" on the Oregon coast, Port Orford, established in 1858.  There we had great clam chowder and fish and chips at Crazy Norwegian's, where apparently everybody knew to go. Great good and cheerful people.  We liked the town and plan to learn more about it in the future.