For my birthday this year we took a few days off and slowly drove down the Oregon Coast, which stretches approximately 362 miles from the Columbia River in the north to the California border in the south. It was definitely a birthday to remember. I learned some interesting things on this trip, like the fact Oregon has 11 lighthouses, the oldest being Cape Blanco Lighthouse which was built in 1870.
The Oregon Dunes are pretty amazing. A massive and unique area of windswept sand. It is the largest area of coastal sand dunes in North America and one of the largest expanses of temperate coastal sand dunes in the world, with some dunes reaching 500 feet (150 m) above sea level.
When the conditions are just right, the sand squeaks and sings when you walk on it. Apparently there are park rangers who have worked along the coast for 20+ years and never heard it, but I find this unlikely because it's happened every single time I have gone to the beach. It is soooo fun to run around and have these squeaks follow you.
One of the weirdest facts about the Oregon coast is that most of those much-revered headlands you see were created by lava flows some 45 million years old. Some of these flows were so huge they actually created secondary eruptions, which in turn created these gorgeous rugged mountain like islands all over the coast. Geologists call this an “intrusive” rock formation because it was created by lava flows diving underground and then intruding upwards again.
Stay tuned for a video with some more fun footage from our trip. =)
