Sometimes the best family traditions are the ones you didn’t officially plan to make happen.
For me, that’s going to Florence annually during the winter. That’s Florence, Oregon. (Although, I have been to Florence, Italy once during the winter, too!)
I’m a sucker for keeping the tree up waaay past its expiration date because I love Christmas but for the past three Christmases, we have taken the tree down Dec. 26 because we headed out of town either that day or the day after. (The first year we did this Florence trip, we went right before Christmas so in total, we’ve gone to Florence four times now.)
Why Florence, Oregon specifically? I’m actually not sure. (Side note: My toddler has picked up saying “actually” at random times or at the end of sentences and I realized it’s because of me. Do I actually say “actually” that often??) In the gloom of fall/winter 2020 where everyone canceled their annual holiday gatherings, Bryce and I decided we should take a road trip with our pup somewhere. He picked Florence. I’ve been to the Oregon Coast numerous times but never had been to Florence. There are lots of beaches, nearby light houses to explore, the sand dunes and trails to hike. I, of course, loved it the first time we went and since then, it’s surprising that we are still exploring new places when we go down there.
This time it was Cape Perpetua. (OK, this is technically an hour north of Florence but it made for a nice day outing for us.)
We hiked, well walked, down the paved trail from the visitor center at Cape Perpetua Scenic Area to Thor’s Well and the Spouting Horn. On the paved trail, there were several “Thor’s Well” signage painted with arrows pointing straight ahead. They clearly wanted us to go see it so I had high expectations.
When we reached the lookout area (only ~0.5 mile down,) the Spouting Horn definitely stole the show over Thor’s Well. (Sorry, Thor.) It may have been because it was high tide so Thor’s Well (which is essentially a hole in a sheet of rock) was just getting overflown with water. Whereas the Spouting Horn was, yep, you guessed it, spouting a ton of water. We kept saying to each other, “OK! Last one!” in terms of waiting for a big wave to come in so we could see the water shoot up but then kept waiting and watching some more … and more … and, oh, just one last time! Over, and over again.
On our trek back up to the parking lot, I asked Bryce, “How did we not know about this place before? It’s so cool!” I was a little in disbelief that we were still finding new places to explore on our fourth visit to Florence and its surrounding area on the Oregon Coast.
Since our toddler no longer wants to sit in a stroller — and even dismissed the hiking backpack we had brought on this trip — it leaves no option for longer hikes. The last few times we have come down here, we have done several 3-5 mile hikes with kiddo in the running stroller or hiking backpack. This outdoor outing was nice because although it was short — I think roundtrip it was just about a mile — we were able to take in some extraordinary views. We also lucked out with the weather being sunny and nice in the middle of winter. No rain on this day either!
Oh, and we spotted a seal amongst the waves, too!
Oregon Coast really is magical.
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