Gold Beach, Oregon

Last night we arrived after dark in Gold Beach, Oregon.  We have an all day excursion planned today, and tomorrow we will continue onto the Red Woods.

Rather than drive the RVs down the road to the river, we all piled into Pop's truck this morning.  The kids were excited to ride in the bed of the pick-up.  Eeek!

This Jet Boat tour was high on Colin's bucket list for our trip.  We spent the day on the Rogue River, where the weather went from overcast raw and cold, to sunny and hot, and then back again.  Layers was the name of the game today.  

We saw lots of wild life on our tour, include several bald eagles.

We also saw some pretty awesome trees.  This one was growing out of a huge rock, sending its root system all the way down the rock towards the river.

As explained by our tour guide, the Native Americans sometimes "trained" trees to grow a certain way, in order to create a landmark for providing directions.  This one was pretty clever!

Hello River Otter! So cute!!!

Not long before our journey ended, our amazing tour guide spotted a black bear up in the woods.  Can you see him in the middle of the photograph, behind the shrubbery?  We stopped to watch him (her?) for a while.  Very cool!