On the Road with Lauri

In the last several years, I have been so blessed to have wonderful adventures.  I have kayaked near Crater Lake, explored Europe, hiked in old growth, snowshoed.  I have seen some amazing things and taken a lot of photos.  But I don't know that I have ever seen anything as beautiful as Fern Canyon in the Redwoods. I have read about Fern Canyon for years and always wanted to visit.  I am still giggling over my visit earlier today. After a long and VERY bumpy road, you get to this beautiful canyon of green. Hikers walk around as if in a daze, taking in the canyons on all sides.  There's a reason movies have been filmed there.  Fern Canyon was the start to my day.  Then I went to Ladybird Johnson Grove, a beautiful old growth grove with a tribute to First Lady Johnson, who fought for the Redwoods. (backpack again for scale in photo below. Those darned trees are hard to capture.). Then it was off to the fabulous town of Eureka, which has a crazy beautiful...

 I have always had a thing for lighthouses. And Oregon is all about their lighthouses.   Driving down the Coast of this beautiful state gives a person plenty of chances to visit these lovely old places. They all feel like they could tell stories.  I love how they are carefully maintained by their local communities and how each lighthouse lists all of the keepers who lived there.  In the last several days I saw the lighthouse at Heceta Head (near Florence.  The photo from far away feels very dreamlike, which mist shrowding the lighthouse. Today, I saw the lighthouse at the Coquille River (near Bandon) and the beautiful one at Cape Blanco.     Other trip highlights so far: I reunited with a couple of old friends of mine on the beach in Newport.  It felt really good to see each other after all these years (and yeah, it was windy out there!) I stayed on a riverboat in Newport, which was utterly beautiful. The fog rolled in while I was there. The ...