White City, Oregon to Eugene, Oregon

White City is in the southern part of Oregon. We met friends, Allen and Sharon, to do a couple more days of sightseeing together. They had arrived in the area a few days before us.

Crater Lake National Park was our 1st sightseeing excursion. The lake was unlike any other we had ever seen, with the water having intense colors of blue and being surrounded by huge cliffs over 2000 ft high! About 7,700 years ago, a volcano, Mount Mazama, erupted and collapsed on itself, and the crater that was left filled with rain and melting snow. Other eruptions formed other features, such as Wizard Island, which is within the lake. Crater Lake is said to be the deepest lake in the United States (1943 ft) and also one of the deepest in the world. There is a rim road which encircles the lake, but only part of the road was open because the park service was still trying to clear snow in July! They get over 500 inches each year! A new attraction in the park is a trolley ride around the rim road of the lake which we opted to take. One of the park rangers was on board and gave us some great information about the area.

Allen and Sharon had suggested a Segway tour of an old gold mining town, Jacksonville, that has so much history that the whole town is listed on the National Historic Registry. After our Segway training session, the four of us set out for a tour, led by our tour guide, Aaron. We were all pretty proud of ourselves as we rode around the town, until there was a slight mishap. Allen's Segway started acting like a bucking bronco and threw him into Art and knocked Art off his Segway! Sharon and I were trying to hang onto our machines, to prevent them from getting away by themselves, so all we could do was watch the men lying there! Luckily, there were no major injuries, just some scrapes and bruises! Should have taped that episode for America's Funniest Home Videos! All in all, it was a fun time, and we are glad we participated!

After our Segway adventure, we decided to go to an area vineyard for some wine tasting. We figured we could use it by then! Not only did the vineyard make wine, they were also in the Alpaca business. The owners had been raising Alpacas for some years, and besides using the fur for yarn, some of the fur was being processed into oil absorbing fiber pads for the booms being sent to the Gulf to help with the absorption of oil from the spill. A few of the animals were for sale. Did you know a pregnant Alpaca can go for $20,000? The owner was so nice and let us go out to the animal pens and get up close and personal with the Alpacas. They had just received a haircut, because of the hot weather, and were only left with fur on their heads and legs! What a sight they were!! Some of them looked like large poodles!

We said our goodbyes to Allen and Sharon and headed for Eugene, which is in the middle of Oregon. It is the home of the University of Oregon, the "Ducks". On one of our days in Eugene, we decided to drive to the central coast of Oregon (ranging from Florence to Newport). The scenery was beautiful, both on the roads to and from the coast, and on Hwy 101, the coast road. Starting near Florence was the Oregon Dune National Recreation Area. There are 40-50 miles of sand dunes along the coast, and we got a great view of some of them. We went from the sand dunes to higher elevations with huge craggy cliffs and rocks in the ocean. We passed some lighthouses, one of which was Heceta Lighthouse, one of the most photographed lighthouses on the coast. The quaint seaside towns along this route were so picturesque!

One of our most fun coastal stops was the Sea Lion Caves. We went down an elevator 208 ft to the world's largest sea cave, said to be 12 stories tall and as long as a football field. In the cave were hundreds of Stellar Sea Lions. It was smelly, but fascinating to watch! Some of the Sea Lion bulls were huge and fighting with each other to protect their cows and positions on the rocks. It was really a neat experience to see this!