Highway 101

Finally we were on our way again down Highway 101 along the Oregon coast. Oregon has given some appropriate names to their coastal coves and look out points and we stopped at quite a few: Devil's Churn, Devil's Punchbowl, Cape Foulweather and Devil's Elbow. At each of these, the cliffs were high, the sea stacks jagged and the waves choppy. At Devil's Churn, constant rolls of water rush inland and explode in tremendous lighthouse stood sentry on a lonesome jetty.

Further south the names mellow and the waves relax. Sand dunes replace the steep cliffs and dune buggies replace the surf boards. We stopped for lunch at Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area just below Florence. We plodded to the top of the dunes, one step back for every two forward, then plowed down the other side onto the beach. It was foggy and no one else was there. Every footstep we made felt like the first being planted on an Uncharted land.