Honeyman SP, OR

OR coast from southbound US 101 at 60 MPH

US Highway 101 runs the entire length of Oregon coast, some 340 miles.  State parks, heritage sites, memorials, scenic viewpoints and recreation areas abound along the highway, plus the feds have a mess of similar attractions and facilities.  You can’t drive for 10 minutes without seeing a road sign for something or other, and one wonders how and why so many players got into the act.  Within a few miles of us the feds have areas administered by the BLM, USDA, Forest Service and National Park Service.  Gee, I wonder: could this possibly be redundant and wasteful and totally asinine? 

A dense forest of magnificent tall trees, Sitka Spruce, Douglas Fir and Western Red Cedar, some of them 200’ high with trunks up to 4’ in diameter, surrounds us.  The picture below was taken with the camera pointing straight up.

                                                                                                                                          

Above: the outside seating area at a bay-front restaurant in Florence, OR, 3 miles north of us.  We had lunch there one day, clam chowder and a microbrew, but sat inside, too windy and cool outside.

Above: Oregon Dunes Nat’l Rec Area has long stretches of sand dunes up to 500’ high; Honeyman is right on the edge of it.  We rented a canoe and paddled around this little lake one day.  Below: The inside of Cleawox Lodge, across the lake from the sand dunes, built by the CCC in the 30s.  They built the outside, too.

In case you can’t read the sign in the above picture, it describes the cobra lily, aka pitcher plant.  It’s rare, grows wild in swampy areas along the CA and OR coasts.  This crop of about 500 SF is 5 miles north of Florence. 

The cobra lily.