Florence, OR

  Sunday, September 4, 2011

Yesterday we took a ride north roughly 20 miles to meet up with our new friends, Rick, JR, Cody, Melissa and Mark. They were out riding in the morning and said the winds were low. Down by us, they were still pretty high. It is not enjoyable on the beach when you get exfoliated from head to toe.

JR

We hung around their camp site for a while before heading out. They are really truly nice people. We feel as if we have known them for a very long period of time. The effortlessness between all of is wonderful. We all seem to just click.

random campers

Mark and Melissa's campsite in Florence

Once out on the dunes we had a blast! We frequently followed Rick. He has the most supped up Polaris amongst us. Although Mark and Melissa comes in a close second.  JR and Cody have 4 wheelers - all jacked up. They all are dare devils and we loved it. Without being with them, Tommy would not run at 40 mph up and over 50 foot dunes where you cannot see the other side until you are airborne at the apex.

Rick, Tommy, JR and Cody

The races

Mark and Melissa

 We stopped for a long interval at a certain point where everyone races up and down this one dune. It was entertaining to say the least. It was close to 90 feet in height. It has a grade of at least 40 %. Of course Tommy just HAD to try it himself. I wanted out, but before I could say anything he had the accelerator nailed to the floor. It WAS fun, but then we had to come back down. Freaky, freaky, freaky! It was like experiencing a Disney ride only in the back of your mind you do not have the assurance that nothing bad will happen. 
We did this several times before going on in another direction. Tommy chuckled out loud the entire time.

Cody...AH to be 20 again!!

We ended up on the beach. The ocean was a lot calmer than the day before and shimmering like diamonds. Just beautiful. We came upon a Sea Lion sunning himself. He was big. He was cute. Im not really sure if it was a he or a she, but I took some video and lots of pictures. The wildlife association came out and posted signs all around him to protect him from people and dogs. Apparently this happens often on this beach.

It was a treat for us to see up close and personal, without it being in some sort of performance show. It was in its own element and doing what it wanted to do. We just loved it.

 
After 3 ½ hours of riding, which BTW, goes incredibly fast, we headed back to their camp. It was now around 7pm and we needed to go home and feed our animals. We said our goodbyes, again, and left off with - we’ll see you at the end of next week when we come by your house. (We are passing by their town on the way down to San Francisco).

Tommy and I had a quiet evening at home eating incredibly good poppy seed chicken I prepared earlier.
Today we will ride again, on our own, in Spin Reel Dunes down by our campsite. If nothing outstanding happens today I will not bore you with more of the same pictures…..

JR and Tommy

At the summit. You cant see the down side.

When you see this place in actuality, it’s so spectacular that you cannot stop taking pictures. You want to capture it all in your mind. But it is so vast and extraordinary - pictures are my only hope. Oh, and on a side note; we might have to buy yet another camera - yup, #3 this trip, sand is stopping the shutter from opening and closing properly. We’ll see after today!

Thanks for reading and enjoy your day off work tomorrow! If you are not aware, you can click on each picture and they will enlarge for you to see better. This blog, more so than other blogs gave me fits about placing the pictures so they are completely out of order, sorry!