Waxmyrtle Campground<\/strong> – South of Florence is the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area<\/strong>.\u00a0 I have chosen to check out the Siltcoos Recreation Area<\/strong>.\u00a0 The big draw here is OHV, Off Highway Vehicles<\/em>.\u00a0 Not my thing, but the area works for me nonetheless!\u00a0 OHV-ing is limited to the north side of the road.\u00a0 There’s a campground for those folks, then there’s a couple of quieter campgrounds – one surrounded by a lagoon (called Lagoon<\/strong>!), one south of the road called Waxmyrtle.\u00a0 I should also note that there’s a large chunk of riverside dunes closed to the public for the Snow Plover mating season<\/em>.\u00a0 So even though you can hear all kinds of motorized mayhem going on a mile or two north, it’s pristine and beautiful and locally very quiet down here. Come to think of it, sand is probably a great sound absorber, especially compared to say, Nevada hardpan.\u00a0 So they let the engine-lovers tear up one part of the dunes area. They completely close off another for the tree-huggers. Then they leave the rest for normal hiking and camping.\u00a0 A nice compromise!\u00a0 And really, what better place to OHV than sand dunes?\u00a0 Unlike my poor Nevada desert, which will remember the damage of a single dune-buggy for decades, the sand dunes will have forgotten it tomorrow!<\/p>\n

First thing, I put the bike together then wear myself out simply by riding a coupla miles to the end of the road.\u00a0 I discovered that my tires are flat-ish, so my excuse for being such a wimp is that I had a lot more drag with my tires than usual.\u00a0 Then I walked the Lagoon Trail<\/strong>.\u00a0 Some excellent swallows on the first part (Barn Swallows?\u00a0 Purple Martins?), but pretty boring after that.\u00a0 A nice info-sign about invasive species, the Nutria and some kind of Asian grass that is choking out the native grasses – I hate invasive species.\u00a0 Then I embarked on the Waxmyrtle Trail<\/strong>.\u00a0 It goes all the way to the beach.\u00a0 I ran out of daylight so I did not make it to the ocean, but still enjoyed a spectacular sunset where the trail runs along a ridge over the Siltcoos River<\/strong>.\u00a0 The river bend, then the Plover-safe unhiked and un-driven primitive dunes area, then the mouth of the river into the ocean … oh yeah, with the almost quarter moon over to the left. awesome!<\/p>\n

I liked that moon thing so much that I went back up there around 11, for some of that moonlight hiking I love so much and to admire the moon over the river, sort of where the sun was a few hours ago.<\/p>\n