Saturday June 4- Pacific Coast Scenic By-way Bandon to Brookings

Posted on June 9, 2011 by deniselg

Saturday June 4- I was up early working on the second HEDIS measure until 10 AM. Then Bob and I drove south on Rt. 101, the Pacific
Coast Scenic By-way which is well named. We stopped in Bandon at the Ace Hardwarefor Bob to buy some screening material. We have torn a hole in the bottom of the screen door. It did not bother us in the winter, but we do not want flying critters in the house! We continued south, seeing a sign for a side road. We went off towards the ocean, visiting Devil’s Kitchen state park.

A few miles farther south we passed cranberry bogs. This area is known for cranberries, blueberries and marionberries.

Then farther south to the Cape Blanco Lighthouse.

This lighthouse guards the western most point in Oregon. It is also the oldest standing lighthouse in the state, commissioned in 1870 to aid shipping generated by both the gold and lumber industries. It is located 245 feet above the ocean and the tower rises 59 feet. In 1980 the Coast Guard automated the lighthouse. There were spectaculat views in this area.

We drove past the Hughes House, a victorian house built in the 1890’s.

You could take a tour, but we did not want to take the time.

We continued south to Port Orford, where we stopped for lunch at the Crazy Norwegian’s restaurant.

It certainly did not look like much from the outside, but the inside was clean and the food was terrific. Bob had their specialty, the fish( with prawns) and chips, while I had a shrimp melt. It was a grilled cheese sandwich, on thick sourdough bread with fresh bay shrimp. I
had my choice of cheese, and chose pepperjack, which was just awesome! Bob’s fish and chips were good; he had fries, but also potato salad, which we both liked. He really liked the homemade tarter sauce, which had dill in it, it looked like a lot of dill, but it was not overpowering. We later found out that the restaurant is on the top 10 list of seafood restaurants on the Oregon coast. We can understand why!

Continuing south, we stopped at the Natual Bridges Cove

and finally arrived in Brookings, just north of the California border. We had originally planned to stay at the Elks Lodge here, but changed our plans. We drove through the Elks just to take a look at the sites, and it is a very nice place. We might stay there the next time we come through this area! Nick and Terry Russell www.gypsyjournal.net were camped there, but they were not at their motor home.

We continued south to the Azalea Park. It was a very nice, volunteer run park. Some of the azaleas were still in bloom.

We needed to decide what else to visit, so Bob suggested we do that at the local Dairy Queen. Of course, we had to buy something…. Bob had a mini brownie blizzard and I had a small chocolate cone. We decided on visiting the Brandy Creek Distillery to try the Blackberry liqueur. The owner described it as sweet, but it was too much liquor for either of us. We drove back north, stopping at a few scenic viewpoints along the way.

This is a sign you don’t see everyday!

This gull decided that we were not too much of a threat to him, so he hung out with us for awhile at one of the viewpoints.

We returned to the motor home to walk the dogs, then went back south to Bandon for dinner. We decided on the Wheelhouse, a very nice choice, right on the bay. I had the Sherry Grilled Scallops and Bob had the Fried Prawns. He had a nice clam chowder and I had a salad with the house dressing, which was a honey spice. Yum, too bad they don’t bottle it for sale! Most everything was closed downtown, so we walked out on the pier, and just in case we did not know where we were: