May 17 - The Whole Earth is Full of his Glory

Doug and I had a wonderfully full day today.  In fact, we are sitting in our hotel room tonight pretty exhausted.  We're exhausted mainly because of the 4 mile walk we did before dinner here in Bandon.  The walk took us south on the beach and then looped back north on streets.  But, that is the end of the day.  Let me start at the beginning.

This morning we got up and took a nice long walk on the beach near Winchester Bay.  The best part of the walk was the gray whales we saw spouting just off shore.  In fact, we saw 2 whales breach the surface. I was so excited that I just happened to look out to the ocean just as the whales were passing by and just as they surfaced.  Otherwise we would have missed them all together.  As I mentioned yesterday, I've been thinking about how God is our Everlasting Father.  When I saw the whales I thought, "isn't that just like a father to show us, his kids, something so wonderful as the whales passing by?"  We were delighted, as kids should be.  I think God was filled with joy that we were delighted in what he had shown us.  What a way to start the day.

We traveled south to Shore Acres State Park, which is outside Coos Bay.  We've been to this state park several times, but its beauty always amazes me.  We hiked a little beside the shoreline and then spent some time walking through the gardens surrounding the original Simpson mansion that used to stand here.

Here are some of the rock formations at Shore Acres State Park:

This is the Japanese garden at Shore Acres:

This is Simpson Beach at Shore Acres State Park.  It is such a peaceful little beach.  Doug and I were tempted to throw aside our other plans for the day and spend time just sitting on this beach.

We stopped briefly to see Bandon Dune Golf Course.  No, we didn't golf.  Then we were on to Bandon.  We had a lovely lunch of clam chowder purchased at the Bandon Farmer's Market.  After a short nap, we took the 4 mile walk I mentioned earlier.  Bandon is a beautiful spot.  So many rock formations.  When you have a chance look up the story of Face Rock.  It's kind of interesting.

This isn't the best picture, but can you see the face of the women coming out of the water and looking toward the north star?

An overlook of Bandon Beach rocks:

Tomorrow is another big day.  We're doing the jet boats at Gold Beach.  They called us today and offered us an upgrade to the 104 mile trip instead of the 60 mile trip we had reserved.  Apparently, only 4 people signed up for the 60 mile trip so they upgraded us to the longer one.  Should be a lot of fun.