Fun in the Oregon Dunes

Hi everyone!

I hope your week is getting off to a good start. We had dinner with hubby's mom on Saturday. We brought Charlie along since grandma has been out of the country since the end of November. Little Charlie was so excited to see her grandma, she piddled! We were excited to see hubby's mom too, but did not piddle. ;o)


I have another family story to share with you today. This happened during the same vacation that daughter went over Rainbow Falls. This is about one of our adventures on the way up the Pacific Coast from California.


The Oregon Coast is a beautiful place. There are miles of beaches, old growth forests and lovely small towns to see. The Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area is a beautiful portion of the coast. The sand dunes are huge and stretch for miles. There are many ATV and dune buggy rental and tour shops.

We decided to stop at one of the dune buggy tour locations for a fun tour of the dunes. Yay!! Family fun!! HA!

There are many choices of vehicles at these places. Large, multi person open air buses and smaller sand rails. We chose a four seater, the three of us and a tour guide. The weather was warm and sunny so we had on shorts and sandals. The tour folks recommended closed toe shoes so we all changed into our tennis shoes. We get securely buckled in and handed a helmet. Good so far, lots of safety precautions.

Off we went, driving along the lovely dunes. Up hill and down, through small patches of trees and along the water's edge. It was lovely! It was about this time that the driver started to speed up. And it was also when my loving husband told him "go faster, don't worry if my wife starts screaming...it just means she is having fun!"

The driver took off like a shot! We started zooming across the sand. Retracing our tracks, we went back to the water's edge and this time we had a spray of water behind us. We were going so fast that my head was whipping around. And boy howdy, was I screaming! The weight of the helmet along with the speed was giving me a huge headache.

But the worst was yet to come. Instead of going up and down the hills like on a normal road, we began spiraling down hill as if in a vortex. I was on the side closest to the center or bottom of the vortex. I was petrified! I was sure that the heavy helmet was going to pull my head down and hit the sand. I could not believe the pull of gravity! I was in non-stop scream mode!

I was finally able to release my death grip on the cross bar in front of me to smack my husband on the knee to signal my distress. He let the driver know we ( I ) had had enough and were ready to stop. We finally headed back to the parking lot and were able to stop and get off that crazy ride.

I was literally shaking. I was a combination of frightened and furious. I had a mouthful of sand from screaming. My mouth and chin were coated, yuck! I stood up and dropped at least ten pounds of sand out of my shorts. Needless to say, I stalked off and headed to our camper to cool down. What an ordeal!

I can still imagine that feeling of trying to keep my head off the sand. I was sure I was going to end up like Isadora Duncan. I finally stopped being angry and hubby and daughter stopped laughing at me...well at least not so boisterously. I am not ashamed to say I am the wimp of the family.

I would love to go back to the Oregon Sand Dunes. It is a beautiful part of our great nation. I would even take another tour of the dunes. But next time I will be in the big bus, with all the other chicken old ladies!

until next time!

hugs,

puglette

:o)