July and August 2020 - Eureka California and Reedsport Oregon

We left the Fitzpatrick family in Utah and drove to Eureka/ California where we spent the month of July.  We picked this location for three reasons,  cool weather, oceanside setting, and proximity to the redwoods.   Each reason paid off handsomely.  

Samoa Beach which was a 7-minute drive from downtown Eureka, where we were staying had some beautiful sunsets and was a great place to just go read during the day.

We were not aware of this before we arrived, but Eureka has many art murals painted on business throughout the town.   We enjoyed hunting them down.  Here are a few to share. 

They also have a program where businesses sponsor artists to paint the city utility boxes.   Below is one of our favorite groupings. 

Eureka is also famous for a large number of Victorian homes in the area.  These were mostly built in the 1890's by timber tycoons.   We made a trip out to nearby Ferndale which also has a number of these wonderful structures.   

Merritt is glad he brought his mountain bike along as there were some really great trails in the Arcata Community Forest which is about 10 minutes north of Eureka.  It's got to be one of the few bike trails where you can ride through a tree.   He also enjoyed riding the Ossagon Trail loop in Prarie Creek State Park about an hour north of Eureka. 

Facebook has been great in helping us find friends who are also close by.  Brent and Susanne Fox were in an RV campground just an hour north of us at Patrick's Point State Park.  It was nice to drive up there and spend several hours visiting over lunch (while social distancing of course).  

On the way back on Highway 101 we stopped to take photos of several amazing coastline scenes.  Below is just one stunning example. 

When you are visiting a place for a month you have time to look around, in doing so we found the Humbolt Botanical Gardens which were amazing.  They had a whole bed of nothing but different varieties of heather so here is a photo of Heather standing with the heather.  

Our friends Mark and Lorreta Eliason escaped the 100 plus temperatures in Redding to come and play with us for a few days.  We spent some time at the beach, visiting the magnificent redwood forests (where you absolutely must pay $10 to drive your car through a tree) and Mark brought his bike along for some riding together. 

An unexpected benefit of staying in Eureka was finding some great tennis buddies for Merritt to play with.  He just went down to the local court and Rodney and Cass invited him to join their every Friday afternoon and Saturday morning tennis group. Merritt would like to come back again next year just to play more tennis with them. 

While Merritt was off playing tennis Heather continued to make progress on her sewing project that she is doing in conjunction with her sisters over Zoom.  If you check the prior blog post you can see how much progress she has made. 

Jon and Lochlan decided to move from Hawaii to Utah and so they had some time to drop in and spend a few days with us as well.  It was a very nice way to spend our last few days in Eureka.  Here is a photo of them standing in front of the Trinidad harbor.  We also took them to Prairie State Park to see the redwoods  and Fern Canyon. Along the way, we saw some elk and stopped and took about 1000 photos, but we are just going to post one.  They were cute. 

Merritt enjoyed spending some time on the beach with Lochlan the last day they were here. 

On August 3rd we packed up the car and drove four hours north to Reedsport, Oregon which is just north of Coos Bay.   Reedsport is a gritty timber and fishing town turned tourist attraction.  It's located near some amazing sand dunes so the town was full of RVs with trailers hauling big boy toys for playing in the sand.  The city just marked it's100 Anniversary.  Normally the month August is busy with the national chainsaw carving contest but it was canceled this year due to COVID.   We also spent time walking around town taking photos of murals on the buildings here (I guess they copied it from Eureka). 

We often went north to Florence to spend time on Heceta beach.  Most of the coast of Oregon is dominated by rocky cliffs near the sea but in this part of the coast, there are sand dunes bordering the ocean for about 30 miles.  It is nice to be able to enjoy the variation. 

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On our first trip to Florence, we notice colorful seal statues in front of several businesses.  We spent about 2 hours driving around town so we could take photos of them. This is one of our favorites.  Later we found more of these in neighboring towns as well which was kind of fun. 

The second week we were in Reedsport we got an email that the ward we attended before our mission was going to start holding Sunday meetings via Zoom.  It was great to be able to tune in and see Bishop Lyman and hear from some of our former ward members. 

Merritt couldn't find any good mountain bike trails in the area but he did find some nice hiking trails.  Mostly these were wooded trails but occasionally a sand dune hillside would suddenly appear.   One of Merritt's hikes took him past the Heceta Lighthouse which was pretty cool.  

Merritt also broke out the inflatable SUP (stand up paddleboard) for the first time on the trip and enjoyed paddling on Siltcoos Creek from Sitcoos lake all the way to the ocean.  Later Merritt spent time on Mercer Lake.  We found out that this part of Oregon is unique not only for the dunes but also for the many inland lakes that lie within about 3 miles of the coast.  It made for a nice change of pace from the sometimes too blustery beach.  Note: you can sit comfortably on a sandy beach with winds of 15 mph but then they start gusting up to 20 mph you start to get a bit sandblasted. It is windy here on the coast. 

The Umpqua River flows right past Reedsport and has a nice state highway that runs beside it. We took an afternoon to drive about halfway to I5 stopping at Elkton before we turned around. On our way back we stopped and picked some delicious blackberries that we spotted off the highway. They were much better than the frozen berries we get at the store (of course!).   

We love art and noticed a couple of nice art galleries that were just off the roadside on Highway101.  While our expectations were low they were far exceeded by the quality of the art.  These businesses cater to the passing by RV crowd (the coast is loaded with RV's during the summer enjoying the cooler weather and marvelous campgrounds).  Our favorite was the Earth Works Gallery just north of Yachats (pronounce Ya Hots), lots of nice art. Fortunately, we don't have a home so were only marginally tempted to buy some of these nice items. 

There are lots of amazing rocky coast views north and south of Reedsport.  We visited the Shores Acre State Park and took these photos.  Within the park, there is also a very nice garden where we spent a few hours relaxing and enjoying the efforts of those who planted and maintain these beautiful plants. 

Further up the coast is a feature called Thor's Well.  Pictures don't do it justice so if you click on the link below the photo you should be able to watch a video of it in action.  We visited it once before three years ago but the tide was out so there wasn't much to see. This time we checked the tide tables so we could time it perfectly. 

Thor's Well Video

One of the last things we did was visit Seal Cave.  It's the largest ocean cave in the United States. It's run by a private business that was founded by three families back in the 1920s.   You take an elevator down about 30 stories to enter the cave where you can see seals and sea lions if you come in the wintertime.  In the summer they are all out of the cave but it was still pretty fun to visit the cave just for the cave's sake.  Here is a photo of the coast from the cave. 

Travel tip: If we were to come back to this area we would likely stay in Florence which is about 35 minutes north of Reedsport.  

On August 31st we packed up the trusty Element and headed for our final summer vacation destination of Netarts near Tillamook.  So far so good. 

We hope you are all having a safe and enjoyable summer!