A quest to find dinosaurs...

Our secret goal for the day was to find the Prehistoric Gardens north of Gold Beach, Oregon.  We knew Jack would absolutely love it.  We didn't broadcast that goal to the kids, though, because our maps showed it was about a 2 hour drive up the coastal highway.  After yesterday's twists and turns, we didn't want to commit to a similar experience.  Luckily, the roads weren't nearly as severe as the previous day. We stopped at a local seafood restaurant in Crescent City, CA for lunch.  The Chart Room specialized in extremely fresh, fried seafood.  Dan and I enjoyed the food.  I think the kids were more interested in the sea lions sunning themselves right outside off of the dock.  Sidney's facial expression is one of embarrassment, because Hadley was barking like a sea lion 5 seconds before I snapped this picture.

We crossed over into Oregon and stopped at the first promising overlook I read about in my guidebook.  The coastline views were supposed to be spectacular.  Instead, they were foggy...

As we continued up the coast and located the next suggested overlook, Natural Bridges Cove, the fog was burning off a little.  This was our beautiful sight.

We continued our drive north and discovered Myers Creek Beach, which was supposed to have great tidepools to view.  Unfortunately, we missed low tide, but the kids had a great time frolicking on this beautiful beach.  Dan and I remarked numerous times that we felt like we were in the beach scene from Goonies.  The kids were shocked at the cold temperatures of the Pacific Ocean.  

The drive was moving much quicker than we anticipated, so we continued on to our secret destination.  After about 45 minutes of driving, we reached Prehistoric Gardens.

Yes, it was as cheesy as it looks, but it was also great fun.  The Oregon climate is similar to a rain forest climate.  The creator of this establishment created a small rain forest on the side of an Oregon highway in the 1950s.  He filled it with sculptural replicas of  20 different dinosaurs, using the dimensions of paleontological findings to create the dinosaurs to scale.  We followed a trail through the rain forest to find all 20 dinosaurs.  Jack thought it was the best outing ever!  It was fun to see the perspective size of the dinosaurs in a fake flesh-and-blood way.  Sometimes it is hard to get perspective from the bones in museums.  

We had dinner at a great local pizza joint in Brookings, Oregon (Wild River Pizza) before heading back to our hotel in Klamath, CA.