Day 7: Oregon, dunes and Sandboarding!

HEY!

This morning we woke up to the typical rustlings of a 30-bed hostel. Those silly people were up and cooking breakfast at 7am, so we were awake and out early again. The hostel’s kitchen looked out over a rocky cliff and straight to the Pacific Ocean, which was a pretty nice view to have while making our pancakes. It was a clear and beautiful day, which is nice since apparently they had hail and some snow here yesterday before we arrived!

We said goodbye to the quaint little farmhouse and our bunk beds and headed out for our last day of driving in California. The road took us through a few more Redwood Forests before we approached the border of California and Oregon. After an hour or two we realized that there isn’t a whole lot in Oregon beside trees…a lot of trees. The scenery was just as dramatic as any we encountered in California, and the cliffs and points continued for mile after mile

It wasn’t too long of a drive, and after a few picture breaks we had arrived at our town (Winchester Bay, OR). We dumped or stuff and headed out for the day’s adventure: sandboarding! Just north of town is the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. It has the largest sand dunes in North America, and it makes for some interesting outdoor activities. Since we are cheap and didn’t want to spend a bunch of money renting a 4-wheeler, I found an interesting alternative. It is just like snowboarding, except you do it on the sand. You climb up a sand dune, strap into the board barefoot (or with socks, it’s cold in Oregon!!),and glide down….sounds easy, right?

Well anyone who knows me also knows my track record for things that involve coordination, and I wasn’t an expert at this sport by any means. But it was a really good time, and Taylor and I had a good laugh at our lack of dune shredding abilities. We explored some of the dunes, and then went back to our little town to get the sand out of our ears and have dinner. On the way home we found an awesome place to view elk, so we got a few really good pictures of them. They were pretty close to the road, so we kept our distance, snapped a few pics and got back in the car.

When we were hungry and ready to go we went out in search of food – we were a little surprised when we couldn’t find ANY restaurants in our town open at 8pm. We really were out in the middle of nowhere! Eventually we found a pizza place open one town over, so we ordered a pie and then went home. Tomorrow we drive to Portland, and hopefully tour some of the city!

~Kristyn