Visiting around the campfire after the evening teaching time

This year some old friends from our early days at Bandon Christian Fellowship joined the group - in fact, they were giving the evening teachings! It was good visiting again with Randy/Kelly and Todd/Denisa.

As in past years, there was the traditional hike to Hanging Rock.

Brave souls on Hanging Rock!

Pat and I were joined by fellow geocacher Melia Jasso for an afternoon hike into Coquille River Falls. We found a geocache there and Pat got some good pictures.

Coquille River Falls

Despite the drizzle and cold we managed to find some fun things to do. Shopping in old town Florence, geocaching and I nice toasty campfire.

Hopefully, we’ll get back here to Sutton campground in the fall.

Today Pat and I ventured from the park to check out Hat Rock State Park. I hunted a couple of geocaches and Pat got lots of pictures….that’s just what we do!

Before returning to camp, we drove around in the outskirts of Hermiston….saw an old building and corral and some buffalo!

After getting to Boardman and setting up the trailer, we broke out the cake. Turns out Don’s birthday is tomorrow so Mom brought out a cake for him and everybody gathered to dig in! Good stuff!

Sat around a fire afterwards, complaining about eating too much cake. End of a long day.

The Oregon Garden was nice but we all agreed it was a bit over-hyped (and over-priced).  Very well-manicured setting but it seemed to lack an explosion of color - maybe our expectations were too high or our timing a little early?  Time to move on to see waterfalls at Silver Falls State Park…...........

Silver Falls SP was soooooooooooo crowded!  Despite all the people, we decided to hike a 5-mile loop to see waterfalls and pristine scenery!  No disappointment there!  Got to see several falls along well-maintained trails lined with lush spring greenery!

Actually, it turned out to be another day of geocaching for me because Pat was helping Nicole with a yard sale most of the day.  I cached and hiked in Portland’s Forest Park.  I really like the trails there.

Had dinner with Nicole and Sinclair at Hawthorne Fish House at the end of the day.

I have arranged to meet up with a local geocacher and hike/cache in the Marquam Park area tomorrow after dropping off Pat at the the Portland Convention Center.  Two whole days for caching!  Wheeeeee!

Made a day trip north to the Florence area to get some pics and discovered it was the Rhody Festival weekend.  LOTS of motorcycles on the road today!  We actually caught the end of the festivities which is fine with us - not so keen on big crowds

Can’t visit old town Florence without having a meal at Bay Street Grille!

Made a side trip out towards the north spit to hunt a couple of geocaches.

Yesterday, north to Umpqua Lighthouse - today, south to the Rogue River and Gold Beach!  Getting out to enjoy this nice weather!

We rarely stop at touristy places like the Prehistoric Gardens (between Port Orford and Gold Beach) but there was a new geocache placed there so today we stopped!  Checked out the gift shop as well.

Lots of fog and mist along the coast this morning.  This made for lousy photo ops so when we got to Gold Beach we turned up the river and went to Lobster Creek bridge.  Pat got some good pics there.  We also got to see a jetboat returning downstream with a load of rather friendly folks - waved at us as they passed under the bridge.  This reminded us to sign up for one of these boat rides this summer - looks like a lot of fun!

Upon returning to Gold Beach we decided to have meal at the Port Hole Cafe.  My fish-n-chips was good but Pat’s salmon dinner was awful!  Overcooked on the edges, undercooked in the middle!  Scratch that place off the list!

After our “meal” we took what was meant to be a short diversion south to the Cape Sebastian viewpoint to see if Pat could get some decent photos. Stopped to look for a couple of geocaches first.  One of them already had some cachers already on scene - all three of us looked and found it eventually. Drove to the viewpoint only to discover it was still too foggy.  Then I suddenly realized my iPhone was missing!  Looked all through my gear and the car - nothing!  Drove back to that last geocache location - nothing!  Drove to another nearby geocache we had just been to - nothing!  Panic setting in now!  Decided to check one more time at that last geocache - Viola!  Found it after a little more thorough searching - laying on the ground right where it fell out of my hoody pouch!  WHEW!

Time to go home now before I forget where I live!!!!

She also got some pics of the historic Coast Guard building nearby which now hosts a museum.

Hunting geocaches always seems to take us little out-of-the-way places off the beaten path and today was no different.  Discovered a neat place called Fishing Rock just north of Boiler Bay.  Very rough basalt rock outcrop here producing good wave action.  Pat took quite a few pics here.