Tuesday August 6th 2019
It was gray day with a high temperature in the mid sixties. I had the feeling it was going to rain at any minute, but that wasn’t in the forecast. This is just a normal coastal condition along this part of the shore. Sunshine is not in the forecast until the weekend.
Getting motivated to leave my RV home this morning was difficult. Just before noon I headed north along US 101. Just north of Coos Bay the Oregon coast seems to change from rocky cliffs to sand dunes. I drove about thirty miles north to the next major river crossing. The Umpqua River meets the ocean in the Winchester Bay Salmon Harbor area.
I visited the Umpqua River Lighthouse that overlooks the inlet from 100 feet above on top of a hill a good distance back from the coast. The area between the lighthouse and the coast is filled with sand dune and pine trees. It was very different from the area south of Coos Bay. Later in the year the hill the lighthouse is on becomes a major whale watching area. Today it was hard enough to see the end of the inlet jetties, so any random whale would be very hard to spot. Most whales are spotted between November and January from the observation area.
