Last Sunday (Aug 7), we decided it was a good day to take a day off and romp around. It was a stressful time because of the house and other things and, darnit, we figured that it'd be lovely to just Do Something Together. We conferred about some of the possibilities and decided that it'd be a luvverly day to go to Florence on the coast to see the sea lion caves and the Heceta Head lighthouse.
We got on the road about noon and toddled off. It's a pleasant enough drive, about 80 miles from where we live, and we got to the actual sea lion caves shortly before 2:00pm. Getting down to see the caves costs money but it's worth it. The concession has been owned and operated by the same family for decades. (I should mention that it's really nippy out there on the coast. Although Eugene had been in the 90s for the umpteenth day in a row that day, it's naturally cooler on the coast (about 52 degrees) and the prevailing 25-40mph winds add a bit of a windchill on top of it. We were both glad we'd brought sweaters and jackets.)
We first went to an observation point off to the left, where you can look down at the sea lions from about a quarter mile away.
The sea lions tend to hang out in part on a big ledge at the bottom of the cliff. A few of them were romping around in the water but most of them were asleep in the sun.
As we watched, we noticed a couple things. First, from that distance, they looked for all the world like slugs. Okay, really huge ENORMOUS slugs, but it still was like a big slithery pile of brown slugs moving around.
Second, you could hear the sea lions from a great distance away. When you have maybe a hundred sea lions in a big slithery pile, they make a lot of noise. The bulls keep declaring their territory for the benefit of the younger males (who are always looking to test the boundaries, themselves), the females are calling out to their young, and the calves are making noise continually for the benefit of any other sea lions in the area. They're noisy!.
We walked over to the other side of the hill and caught the elevator 200 feet down to the caves. (The Sea Lion Caves website has a nice demonstration of what you see: go to the web site here and click the down elevator button to start the demonstration.) For decades, getting down to the caves used to be via a wooden structure with some huge number of steps that would take you down to the cave level. . . and then back up, probably a lot slower. An elevator is a much-appreciated bit of technology.
You can look at the sea lions in the caves. The caves are perfect for lolling around in... particularly if you're a large, fatty sea mammal. There are multiple levels that are easy to get up to from the water and the caves are deep enough to be sheltered from any kind of bad weather that might blow in.
We could see the Heceta Head lighthouse from a side of the cave.
Although there was still time in the day, we decided that we'd leave the lighthouse for another day. We headed back up and drove home directly from the caves, but we stopped at the Gingerbread Village restaurant on the way home for a snack, a half-dozen hands of gin rummy in our eternal gin game, and a shared plate of incredible gingerbread and ice cream. They really do make great gingerbread. It's dark and rich and not overly sweet. It tastes like they're using a lot of molasses in the recipe but they don't use too much sugar, so you taste the richer, subtle flavors rather than just the sugar. (I approve of this.)
We got home safe and sound early that evening. All in all, it was yet another Grand Day Out with my favorite person.
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