Shore Acres State Park

Last Saturday Clay and I finally got away on one of our little daytrips.  For some reason, we just haven't managed to get out of town this summer, at least not since our anniversary at the end of May.  We wanted to go to the coast because it was supposed to get up to 90 degrees in Eugene, and we decided to go south this time instead of straight over to Florence or north of it as we usually do.  We ended up going a little south of Coos Bay to the Shore Acres State Park and Botanical Gardens and a little further beyond that to Cape Arago.

We got to Coos Bay just before noon, and after grabbing a bite to eat, we headed towards the lighthouse and state parks.  It was quite foggy.  We couldn't see very far out on the ocean at all.

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We stopped at the Umpqua River Lighthouse, and toured their museum. We declined the lighthouse tour because it cost money, I think $3 each, or maybe it was $5. But we really enjoyed looking at the museum. We thought it was very well done. My favorite room was the Coast Guard of the1960s (they had 1940s through 1970s in addition to lots of information and artifacts about the lighthouse and the area in general).

This Coast Guard guy was kinda cute, don't you think?

I spent way too long in the gift shop at the museum.  I was tempted by many many things, but only ended up buying a pin for my collection (because I just don't have any place in my house for a bunch of knick-knack type things that I really wanted).  I might have bought this t-shirt if they would have had it in my size.  I think this should be my new philosophy in life:

This is the view from a lookout spot in the Shore Acres State Park which was once the grand estate of pioneer timber baron Louis Simpson, complete with lush gardens and even a tennis court (the gardens have been restored but the house is long gone).  It was still quite foggy when we arrived, but it eventually cleared up in the late afternoon.  There are some really unique geological features to this part of the coastline.

Clay is posing in front of the roots of a tree that had blown over years ago.  There were several of these along the hiking trail.

Here we are in front of the Japanese-style garden.

It really was a very peaceful place.  There weren't too many people there when we were, and it was very relaxing with the sound of the ocean in the background.

The rose garden was surrounded by high trees and bushes on all sides and felt especially tranquil.  And the roses were beautiful!  It wasn't a really big garden, but very well cared for.

They also had big patches of dahlias in other parts of the garden.

A small greenhouse had mostly begonias, which were also beautiful.

Clay likes the monkey puzzle tree.

By late afternoon it was quite sunny, but still a pleasant temperature.

We hiked a little bit north of the gardens because we wanted to see the Cape Arago Lighthouse, which is on an island out a little ways from the coast, and hadn't been visible in the fog earlier.

It was my goal to see all of the lighthouses in Oregon, but I guess this is as close as I can get to this one.

Just south of the botanical gardens is the Cape Arago State Park.  I read that you can hear the sea lions from a mile away, as there are large groups of them out on the rocks in that area.  Here is one that was serenading us.  We could actually hear them more clearly in the parking lot above than we could when we hiked down to where we could see them, since the noise of the ocean hides the sound somewhat when you get down closer to them.  But they were still pretty loud!

On our way home, we stopped for a few minutes at the Dean Creek Elk Preserve which is right off the side of the road a few miles east of Reedsport.  It was just before sunset and there were a lot of elk in the meadows there -- I'm guessing maybe at least a hundred, but I'm not very good at guessing. 

It was a very pleasant trip, and we have vowed that we need to make the effort to do this more often. If we lived closer to the Shore Acres park, I think we'd spend a lot of time there.  It seems like a nice spot for family picnics and activities, and very well taken care of.