On Our Way To Prospect..

Leaving Lincoln City wasn't a hard that for us to do. We had decided that we were going to continue down the Oregon Coast. I told Bradley that we didn't have a time limit so if there was anything that he saw that might be interesting to see let me know and we would pull over. One place that we spotted before we were on the road for to long was a place called Boiler Bay.

Absolutely gorgeous..

Its hard to tell but it was still a little bit misty from the morning air. This pull off looks to be a happening place but we had the place to ourselves. As we were leaving several cars had pulled up and were taking in the view. There is just something about the water that is so magical. I could stand and watch it for hours. I think that it has something to do that I lived in Utah for so long and there really isn't anything like it around..and no Utah Lake doesn't count.

Traveling down the road we came to our next stop. I didn't really realize that it was a place that we had to pay to go inside but I forked over the money anyways. Brad wasn't too happy about it but once we left he was happy that we had stopped. I just wanted to go see a light house that was on the Pacific Coast.

The fee sign was very small..

There was no parking down by the light house so we had to park at the visitor center and hike down. I was annoyed at the time but it was so awesome to look around that it didn't really matter in the end.

Libby looking out at the big rocks with birds on them wondering how much of the white stuff was poop..very important :)

I had to Brad's photo by the light house so that he could show his mom..

Can you see what I am pointing at? This is a life time dream of mine that had finally came true. This was the point of the trip that I decided that it was worth the money to come and see inside!

Here is a close up..

You have guess correctly..seals! I had wondered off down the trail while Brad was taking a photo of the light house. I looked over the edge and saw those 6 seals. I gasped so loud that I scared the children I was standing by. They just didn't get it.

There was an area down from the light house that was called Pebble Beach. This was the area that all of the seals hung out and sunned themselves. There was a park ranger there that had a telescope so you could see them up close.

Here you were able to walk out on the rocks and get a little closer to the animals.

Here you can see them..they are the little gray things.

Libby and Brad with the seals..

One last photo of Brad and the light house..

Once we were back on the road again Brad started to show how stressed out he was riding in the car so close to the cliffs. He doesn't do heights at all and this was a real challenge for his to have to sit next to the drop off areas. I just had to laugh..if you are going on a coastal drive there is going to be so big drop offs!

The next little tourist trap that I wanted to go to was the Sea Lion Caves. This has always been on my list of things to do. It was more awesome then what I could have imagined.

What this place pretty much is you pay for a ticket and they let you go down an elevator. Down there, there is a cave where the sea lions go and hang out. I was a little disappointed by the amount of sea lions that were inside of the cave but it was still real cool to see them up close.

Here I am standing next to a skeleton of a sea lion..

Libby by the lookout with the sea lions..

View of another light house. They say that this is one of the most famous light houses to take photos of in the whole world. I didn't recognize it but then again I'm not really into light house all that much.

Waiting for the elevator to go out..

The other part of this place is a lookout point. We decided that we would walk down there because we had paid the money to get in. Now this was the exciting part because we were able to see so many sea lions.

Brad reading the sign..

The best part was to sit and listen to them bark and moan..it was real funny.

Libby and Brad..

Lookout point..

"Bagpipe Bradley" 

Brad is going to hate me for posting this photo but it made me laugh..he felt so dumb but it was super cold and windy that we needed to have sweatshirts. He really was wishing that he had a plain sweatshirt. I thought it was funny and he made quite the fashion statement.

Looking at this place from this view you would have never know that there was so many sea lions and a cave here. Besides it being super windy we couldn't have had a more perfect day.

Loved this place!

Now it was time for us to head down the road once again. When I was planning this trip I found this really cool website http://roadsideamerica.com/. I had played around on it and found the location on where I was wanting to do lunch. I'm glad that Brad just goes with the flow with me and lets me do what I want. Our next place that we stopped at was Jerry's Hot Rod Grill. We had our minds made up that even if the food was horrible that we were going for the experience.

The sun was real bright so its kind of in the shadows a bit..

I was trying to be sneaky and get some pictures inside of strangers. It kind of had the Pulp Fiction feel to it. There was 2 different cars inside that people could eat in. Brad and I knew that wasn't our type of thing so we happily choose a booth located in the corner.

GIANT DRINKS..

The food here was what we thought it was going to be..nothing special but it was all about the experience.

One last shot as we drove away..

By this time our plans were to head over to Prospect to our hotel near Crater Lake. Sadly we won't be seeing the coast again for quite sometime. It was a beautiful drive.

As we were heading east there was a stop that I decided to pull off at. It was Dean Creek which was a elk viewing area. Bradley and I are not strangers when it comes to seeing elk but it has been a while since we moved to Seattle. Out in the field there was a couple different herds of elk.

Now were were starting to get into more of the mountain area.

The closer that we were driving to Prospect the more smokey it was getting. There were a couple differnent fires that were burning. It made the landscape very interesting and pretty to drive through. To pass the time Brad always has the camera out and is taking photos of the passing terrain.

This photo sums up what we were driving through..

It was real cool because as we were driving we passed a helicopter that was filling up its water bucket in the river. It was taking the water over to where the fire was to dump it. I pulled over to let Brad see this happen.

 

The whole rest of the trip we kept saying that we hope that Crater Lake wasn't burning and it would just be our luck if it was. Lucky for us it wasn't and we didn't really have to deal with the smoke once we got there! This drive through the mountains seemed to take forever. We were just wanting to be there. Brad and I were laughing about the change in animals that we had seen. At the beginning of the day we were seeing seals and sea lions. Then it had changed to elk and two very young baby deer. They still had their spots even! Talk about one extreme to another :)