Sandland Adventures and Sea Lion Caves

 Holy smokes you guys....this day was one of the funnest of my life. I'm dead serious.  If I talked to you or texted you after the sand dunes tour...you know how excited I was. If you've never visited sand dunes and taken a tour in a dune buggy, get on that. It was the most expensive part of our vacation, but so so so worth the money!  Brian thought it would be a slow, safe, boring tour and while he was willing to fork over the funds, I could tell it stung a little. I kept telling him no, it's actually super fast, flying up and over stuff, going straight up and down stuff (by stuff, I mean sand)....I don't think he believed me until the driver started putting helmets on us and harnesses.  : )

 Ok, these are going to be out of order, but from the same day, some from phone, some from camera, and none edited at all.  Not my most polished post, but not bad for a Sunday.

Above, after the tour, we mini golfed at the same place. As you can see, the weather was amazing, mid 70s.  By the way, this was in Florence, OR.

 We checked in, paid, and then drove into the woods where the tour would start.

 Brian sticking to his "See an outhouse, use an outhouse" life rule.

 So...it was pretty intense.  I loved every second, but it was like that kind of scary, terrified, screaming and holding your breath at the same time....that kind of fun.  Every 5 minutes or so he would pull over and talk or let us take pictures and those breaks were really needed just to regain your composure.  It was so much fun, but super intense, so the breaks were a good thing.

 Notice the coating of sand on Myles leg...we had sand everywhere, and anywhere there was moisture....like nostrils....was coated.  We were shaking out sand for days.

 You name it, we did it. Beach front, crossed a stream, up dunes, down dunes, sideways across the dune side, donuts, moguls....

 For me, part of the scary part is you have no depth perception. It all looks flat.  Above, we are about 10 feet from a drop off...just past that log in the sand in front of the buggy to the right...it dropped almost straight down.  He just kept if floored all the way over to that hill and we went up, across the side, and down, like a horse shoe.  

 He loved it!! We did the hour tour, and I'm so glad we did.  Again, this was totally a highlight of the trip for all of us.  So fun!!

Then we drove back north, hit up a real A&W drive in for lunch.

 Next stop on the way back up to Lincoln City was at Sea Lion Caves.  I forgot how windy, and smelly it was! I also forgot the 400 ft ride down in the elevator to the cave.

 If I overthought the elevator ride at all I would have had a full on panic attack.  I look thrilled, no??

  We took a scenic loop on the way back up north and stopped at a scenic spot, it was pretty!

 This was the sunset from our room that night...looks a bit like it has rings.

 

 There was a lot of traffic on 101 that day, but you can't beat the view, so it wasn't that much of a bother.

 

This is the cave of sea lions that make Sea Lion Cave a tourist attraction.  

 

Took this while waiting for the elevator at the cave.

Again, this was such a fun day. I'm so grateful that we had this week as a family! So many fun and happy memories from this trip....and more posts to come!