Seven Devils Road, Coos Bay, Oregon

     Today was a day for wandering the back roads along the coast.  We don't have a detailed map of the area, but I looked on the Internet to see what is near Bullard's Beach.  Much of the Oregon coastline is state parks, waysides, and natural areas so isn't hard to find interesting places to access the beach.  We headed north and found a road that went west - Seven Devils Road.  Soon we saw cyclists on the road and a sign that declared it to be another Oregon Scenic Byway.  The road led to the Seven Devils State Recreation Site which used to be a large farm.  Beautiful beach! 

     We continued to follow Seven Devils Road through an area of small farms and forest land.  We came upon the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve.  A small visitor's center gave us information about South Slough which is one of seven inlets that combine to form the Coos Bay estuary.  The slough area includes coniferous forests and shrub land, freshwater and saltwater tidal wetlands, tidal mud flats, eel grass meadows and open water.   It was full of birds that I had not seem before. 

We continued on and came to a stretch of beach that is almost all public land.  It includes Sunset Bay,  Shore Acres, and Cape Arago State Parks.  We noticed a cloud just off shore.  We have experienced this foggy, cold, misty cloud before in Oregon so we hurried on to several overlooks before the fog hid the ocean view.  We stopped at Simpson Reef Overlook and heard a noise that sounded like sea lions.  Just off shore we saw hundreds of California sea lions, harbor seals, and northern elephant seals.  The tide was coming in and the waves were high so the harbor seals were body surfing and playing in the water.  It was really fun to watch. 

     We drove to the end of the road to Cape Arago and watched the waves building and surging on the rocks.  The fog had really set in, the wind was up and the temp dropped about 15 degrees.  We had our picnic lunch in the car.  Then stopped at Shore Acres which has a great view of the ocean as well as gardens featuring trees, shrubs, and flowering plants brought by pioneer lumberman and shipbuilder Louis B. Simpson from around the world aboard his ships. The roses were in perfect bloom in the cool Oregon weather. 

     By the time we returned to our campground the fog bank had retreated and we spent the late afternoon sitting in the sun with a book.  After dinner we had a cozy campfire in this lovely quiet campground.  It was a perfect day.