COOS BAY, OR September 16-26, 2017

After three weeks in Boulder we put the RV and car in storage for the next three weeks and took off for the coast of Oregon and the little fishing village of Coos Bay.  We had a friend's beautiful home for ten days, a rental car and nothing but time to enjoy the beaches and towns of the area. We flew from Denver to Portland with plans to rent a car in town when we arrived. It's become so terribly expensive to rent from the airport rental companies, that we chose a Hertz office we could reach easily using the MAX Rail. But, the office had closed an hour earlier than our paperwork showed...frustrating!!! Luckily, there was an Enterprise Rental office right across the street, with cars available and about the same price of the one I'd reserved weeks earlier. First order of business...pick up groceries at Trader Joe's then on the road for our four hour drive south and west to Coos Bay arriving about 9pm.

The next morning we bundled up in coats and went off to see some beaches, pretty much the same thing we'd do each day, always trying to find someplace new. Our first was a beautiful morning walk along Bastendorf Beach about 40 minutes from Coos Bay.

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Bright blue skies with the most gorgeous puffy clouds made the chilliness worth it all.

 Many mornings were foggy with sun by mid day, perfect for long walks and lunch in new restaurants. One of our favorites in town was the Blue Heron Bistro with a wonderful Bavarian menu.

 30 miles south of Coos Bay is the charming little town of Bandon with so many gorgeous beaches to walk, walk, walk.

Bandon's waterfront dining and boardwalks are so inviting with artwork set along the main street of town. Lots of crabbing going on out on the piers.

As always, we checked out all the state parks along our drives and spent most of one day at  Shore Acres State Park. It sits on high, rugged cliffs above a beautiful beach, once a grand estate of a timber baron. The gardens were lovely and how I'd love to see them in spring with bulbs in full bloom. There's a formal garden, Japanese-style garden, and tucked behind hedges and walkways, a rose garden that still had some off the most beautiful and fragrant roses. A trail leads down to a secluded beach so we hiked down and back up again before continuing the bluff walk for at least another hour and a half. It just kept getting prettier and prettier even with a light rain falling by the time we returned to the car.

Besides beaches and state parks there are also so many light houses along this part of the rocky Oregon coast, so another drive north took us to see the Umpqua Light and State Park and we were lucky enough to join a terrific tour. It was a perfect day with views all the way up the coast.

A  day in Florence, and hikes in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area and we still had plenty of time to enjoy local fish and chips along the pier and tour the amazing new Coos Bay Museum.

In town there's a one place we didn't want to miss, the Egyptian Theater, built in 1925 and still showing classic films on the big screen. We went twice and each evening was fantastic!  The first was a showing of Mama Mia for a breast cancer support fund with the lyrics running across the bottom of the screen making for a fun sing along. Two nights later we saw Orson Welles' Citizen Kane from 1941.

Our home for the week and a half was this unique and beautiful house with a stunning view of the bay, surrounded by not much more than trees and woods. Cooking in this kitchen was absolutely the best, no matter there I looked all I could see was nature. The deck was so inviting, but a little too chilly too sit out much. What fun to have this amazing house all to ourselves

Before making our way back to Portland we took Highway 1 north to see one more lighthouse at Cape Arago, such a perfect ending to our time on the coast, though the winding river road east to I-5 was an experience we probably wouldn't do again soon. Beautiful,but challenging.