Kite Town

We've moved up the coast a little bit....We decided to park ourselves in Lincoln City, Oregon, on highway 101 to be a little more halfway between some lighthouses and state parks. Lincoln City is known for its kite festivals that it holds twice a year, in summer and fall. There are several kite stores in town, and it's fun to see all the different types of spinners, kites, and various flags.

From October thru May, Lincoln City has "Finders Keepers"--That's where glass floats are placed on the beach for anyone to find and keep.  The common glass floats are round glass balls about the size of big glass Christmas ornaments and they originally were used to keep fishing nets afloat in Japan and other countries. In Japan, they were made from recycled sake bottles and that gives them their pretty aquamarine color which seems to be the most common color. They are prized for their rarity when they wash up on the beach. You can find them in antique stores (mostly reproductions today) and Ebay selling anywhere from 15.00 to 65.00 to hundreds of dollars or more depending on size and color and whether there are certain markings on them like Japanese characters, or fishing net lines etched into the glass. There are many glass floats still bobbing around the Pacific Ocean currents, and the ones that do manage to break away from the circular current patterns wash themselves up onto the Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California coasts. The most rare prized color is a cranberry red. They are beautiful and we've seen them in antique places everywhere but telling a reproduction from a real one would be difficult, I would think!
What's really cool is there are several glass art studios around where you can blow your own glass float or other decorative object. The Jennifer Sears Glass Art Studio is one such place. I really wanted to have the experience of making my own glass float ball, but they are only open Wednesdays through Sundays till after July 4th. Then they will be open 7 days a week. Prices start at 65.00 and go on up for making your own glass art object. Expensive, but what a cool experience! We will have to miss that experience this time around and save it for next visit as we came at the wrong time for that.

Lincoln City is home to the "world's shortest river" as the town claims...440 feet..Not much of a river, but this is low tide...

We're going to visit Tillamook Cheese factory while we're here..it's about 48 miles from Lincoln City. There is another lighthouse and a scenic drive, a couple of state parks, lots of antique stores and a couple of noteworthy restaurants so we should have plenty to keep us busy for the next three days.

Oh! Forgot to say where we are--Devil's Lake RV park. VERY nice park,  but sites are very close together. Luckily, there are not very many people here. It appears to be a relatively new park..50 amp service, full hookup, Good Sam's Park, about 29.00 a night. Nice view of Devil's Lake (three mile lake for fishing and kayaking) across the street. The ocean is a mile or two west at the most. There are many RV parks along the coast, but many of them are rather run down and are of the parking lot nature, so you have to be careful and read reviews (RV Park Reviews) to get something decent. If this park was full, we would not be staying here, the sites are way too close together. After exploring the Lincoln City area, our next destination is Seaside, OR.  Maybe we'll see you at the lake!