Oregon Trip, Day 7

So, we had a day of relaxation, a day sightseeing, a day of relaxation, and onto another day of sightseeing. So, day 7 we planned on driving up the coast to the Sea Lion Caves. Up near Florence I think (it was about a 3 hour drive from where we were staying) are the Sea Lion Caves. It's a cave where a lot of sea lions show up every year. lol. Don't you love the description?

So, we got up early that morning since we'd have a lot of driving in front of us that day. We had lunch when we got to the Sea Lion Caves. We were going to stop at a picnic area along the way but then we realized we were to the point where we had a half or so to go to get there and decided that eating lunch there in the parking lot would be a lot faster :)

So, we ate and then headed down to the caves. There is a building set right there on the edge of a cliff. It houses the entrance and the gift shop. After you pay to go in, you have like 3 flights of stairs to go down and then you come out to this spot with a sculpture of a family of Sea Lions. The day was really foggy so we couldn't look out onto the Ocean. Here we are taking pictures with the sculpture :)

There was also a path to the left you could follow to go to an observation area to look near the entrance of the cave where a lot of sea lions gather. There were quite a few! I was worried the fog would be too thick to see that far down but you could see!

Then we headed back the way we came and took the right path to go to the elevator. There is an elevator that takes you like 250 feet down through the cliff side to the Sea Cave. There is an area, it's higher up than where the Sea Lions stay in the cave and fenced off of course, that you get to visit. They had a little video area set up to learn about the Sea Lions and the Sea Cave and then they also had a roped off area that had the fossils of a Sea Lion that were discovered there. Up in another area of the cave in a display case they had the skeleton of a young female sea lion on display as well. And you could hike/walk up to the opening of the cave where the entrance used to be before they built the elevator. Dad said he'd lived in Oregon forhis youth but he'd never once got to go to the Sea Lion caves and it was always something he wanted to do so I'm really glad we got to go!

Watching the Sea Lions, they give birth in late June I think is what I read so there were a LOT of pups in the large group there. It was a lot of fun to watch them, and hear them! lol.

I think we then proceeded to spend more time in the gift shop than we did in the cave. lol. They had a LOT of cool things at their gift shop, not enough specifically tailored to Sea Lions though! But we found these shell necklaces and Mom and Dad got one for each of us ladies :) Mom, May, Laura and I. So we all got a cool sea shell necklace. And Dennis found a large heart rock for me that is really cool looking. Oh, I also grabbed him a little frog figurine with a sign attached that says 'Will work for flies'. It was the one thing he showed me there that he liked so I hope he likes it!