November 17-18, 2015 Sunset Bay to Shore Acres State Parks, Oregon

We went to the tide pools in the morning. In the afternoon we hiked from the campground to Shore Acres State Park. The second trip did not fit in the last blog post, so it got it’s own.

The trail follows the cliff edge so you can watch the enormous waves. We hiked down into Norton bay. John on a bridge over the creek on the way.

Waves at the mouth of Norton bay. Then we hiked back up and this is Norton bay looking down from the other side.

Huge waves. Remember these cliffs are about 100 feet high. We have never seen waves this big before.

 

We had lunch on this point. Near the top right under the tree you can see the fence for the view point. Here is another wave from that view point. Incredible.

 

Looking south toward Shore Acres. This whole peninsula was owned by lumberman, shipbuilder L.J. Simpson. He built  a showplace three story mansion complete with a heated indoor swimming pool and large ballroom.The grounds featured five acres of formal gardens, including a Japanese-style garden built around a 100-foot lily pond. After he built it his wife became ill and died. When fire destroyed the mansion in 1921, Simpson began to build an even bigger replacement. Then he lost his money during the depression and the house and grounds fell into disrepair. In 1942 he sold his beloved Shore Acres to the State of Oregon for a park. On the cliff  on the top left is a sheltered observatory built where he had his house.  Tiny building, huge wave. The second photo is looking down from the observatory area at a wave building.

Sue in a big tree root ball.  The park service restored the gardens. John walking into the garden, with the smaller  guest house is in the gardens. Simpson and his second wife lived there for awhile before it was sold.

 

5 acre formal gardens with the Japanese garden around a 100 foot lily pond.

 

  A fountain in the garden. The barn was turned into a gift shop. The garden is created for all seasons-with showy peaks of different kinds of flowers for almost every time of the year.  Thousands of annuals and perennials May-Sept., 300 dahlias Aug- October, hundreds of  rhododendrons and azaleas Apr-May, 800 rose bushes June-Sept and 300,000 holiday lights Thanksgiving-New Years.  On the way back John went the short way to go home and start dinner. I loitered. The waves were mesmerizing, I just could not stop looking.

Sunset Bay beach is just across the street from the campground. On this point in 1973 The first transcontinental crossing of the US in  a hot air balloon began.  Beautiful crescent sand beach in a protected cove.

Rock outcroppings on Sunset Beach. Tide pools between the rocks.

  

We hiked from Simpson Reef wild life area with the seals up over the pack trail. It went straight up, then straight down and repeat for a few drainages in temperate rain forest. Very invigorating.

Parts of the trail were tree tunnels. Back to the coast and there were kind of light spots on the sky. I met a local jogging on the last night. He told me summer is pretty much the same, 60’s, windy , cloudy and cold. He said he remembers whole 6 week periods of no sun at all in the winter. I said I would not like that, he said you just have to get into the gothic aspect of it and go out every day hoping for a sliver of sunshine.  The waves today were much smaller than yesterday, but still pretty impressive.