Alaskan Trip, Part X

Here it is, at long last:   Chapter ten in the tale of our Alaskan cruise.

We find our heroes in a small, cheap hotel room in Florence, Oregon, waking up to what they assume will be an uneventful day.   Little do they dream that today they will find themselves face-to-face with tigers, bears, irate hoteliers, a big scary bridge, and monsters from the depths of the Mesozoic era, the mighty dinosaurs!   But I'm getting ahead of the story.   Let's go back to the Big Scary Bridge.

The Siuslaw River bridge opened in 1936 and is the gateway into Florence.   It's tall, it's thin, and at night it looks like a bridge into the abyss.  I was able to get over it by keeping my eyes closed.   Unfortunately I was driving.   Thank goodness for guard rails.

When we left the hotel, I had grabbed a bunch of travel brochures, looking for interesting sights to stop along the coast.   My travel partner began to start flipping through them as we drove.   At about the fifteenth brochure. she stops...   one phrase among all the brochures has caught her utmost attention.  The brochure was for the West Coast Game Park, and the phrase was:  Pet a Leopard.   My partner was immediately hooked, and WCGP became our first stop on this leg of the trip.










Me, posing as Frank Buck, ready to take on any dangers that the safari might entail.   I would encounter the first one moments later, when I discovered the admission fee.  The animals might roam free, but i sure didn't.

This tourist trap advertises itself as "America's largest walk-through safari."   It was opened in 1968 as a deer park, then rapidly expanded into the attraction it is today.  It's a family run attraction, still owned by the family that started it.  It is basically a small zoo and petting farm.  Its two most distinguishing characteristics are the large number of cats housed here, and the chance to pet a leopard.   They had almost every kind of cat you could think of:  lions, tigers, bobcats, cheetahs, pole, copy, and various varieties of each, including the rare white tiger.   They also had an assortment of other animals, including goats, geese, gibbons and gorillas.  Porcupines, peacocks, prairie dogs and parrots.  Bears, badgers, bison, boars, birds, bunnies, beavers, burros...  Well, you get the idea.  My partner most enjoyed the show area, where just as advertised you could pet a leopard...

 

Along with various other animals, like a bear, or a tiger.

They also had an animal nursery, where you could handle some smaller, friendlier type critters.   The day we were there they had a ferret, a raccoon, and a possum available for flea-sharing...

I, of course, with my skills as an animal handler, had no problems here...

Here I am teasing a small cheetah.  You can tell this is at the beginning of my time with the cheetah because I still have all my fingers.

Later, i spent some time with the bear.   I am petting him bare-handed.   No one thought that was funny, including the bear.  I guess I made a little Boo-Boo.   There's a joke there if you're not too particular.

Petting the farm animals was a big attraction here.   In this picture, I'm not sure which one of us is most thrilled with this prospect. 

 

Here I look like I'm trying to engage the llama with a magic trick. Unfortunately he won't take his eyes of my left hand.   He got really annoyed when I tried to pull a handkerchief out of his ear

Me with the leopard.   It looks like I have my hand in my pocket but in reality I have lost all my fingers.

I'm trying to remember what separated me from this lion.   I don't remember.

After this exciting encounter with exotic wildlife, you would think that no other attraction could meet the same level of adrenaline.  Well, if you thought that, you were wrong.   This was just a precursor to the main event - our encounter with prehistoric beasts.   And where else could that be but in Port Orford, Oregon?   Because that is the home of PREHISTORIC GARDENS.

Prehistoric Gardens was founded in 1955 by EV Nelson.  Born in Minnesota, he was fascinated by dinosaurs as a child.   At the age of 50, he moved to the Oregon coast in search of the perfect place to build a prehistoric playground.   Eventually he settled here and spent the rest of his life building life-size dinosaur models.   His family now runs the attraction.
The great thing about Prehistoric Gardens is that it is an actual rain forest.  This makes a perfect setting for the monsters you will encounter here.  A well-marked path takes you far into the forest, among the giant redwoods, ferns and moss.  As you turn each corner, you come face to face with the sculptures, towering above you as if to say, "I may be chicken wire and plaster, but I could still kill you if I happened to fall over."  Naturally, I had a field day here and did what any neanderthal man would've done in a similar situation:  posed for pictures.

Entering Prehistoric Gardens.  I figured the dinosaurs would be nice to me since I'm getting close to their age.  

I soon learned they were a great bunch - of herbivores.   I felt the best idea was to blend in.   here I am posing with a stegosaurus.

Here I am again, still blending in.   It's hard to tell where the large, ugly creature ends and I begin.

Here I blended in so well you can't see me.

I have fooled this ancient creature into thinking I can fly.  Boy, he sure looks stupid.

I may be biting off more than I can chew here.   I'm not sure he's buying my tyrannosaurus act.

He's not.

"Start the car!"

 In our next thrilling episode, we actually make it back into California, visit a mystery spot, and eat one of the best meals I have ever had the pleasure of gorging myself with.   You won't want to miss it!



Alaskan Cruise - Part Nein

In our last thrilling chapter, our heroes were left on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon.   Who knows what adventures await them as they make their return to Pomona, CA?   Let's tune in and see....

As I mentioned, our first stop the next day was Tillamook, to visit the Tillamook Cheese / Ice Cream factory.   (Warning!!!   Cheese puns ahead!)  Let me tell you, it was a Gouda thing we stopped.   I love a good factory tour, and this one was great.   At the end of the tour they had a line of cheese samples where you could help yourself, and I went back four times before I saw the sign reading "Please, only one visit to the sample bar."   I took that in stride and only went back three more times.   I was a regular Muenster!  Some of my favorite cheeses. such as the cheese curds, were only available there at the store, and were not available in Southern California.   This seemed pretty unfair - Cantal the cheeses be available everywhere?  Either way, it was a good place to Gruyere cheese cravings.   I Edam all until I was all feta up!   (okay, we're going out on a limb now...)   On the way out, I ran into Rick Moranis.  His handlers asked me if this was a good place to take Mr. Moranis, and I said, "Ricotta go right in."   I hope it wasn't out of his whey.

Anyone still reading?   Wow, that's remarkable.  Seriously, it was a great tour and the best part, beyond the cheese samples, was the fact that they had all the Tillamook ice cream flavors available for purchase.   I had blackberry and huckleberry....  yum.   Well worth the stop.

At that point, we began driving down the coast.   We were determined to visit as many tourist traps as we could find along the way, so the going was pretty slow.   Stop number one:   Sea Lion Caves, outside of Florence, Oregon.   This tourist stop has been in business since 1932, and despite the addition of an elevator in 1961, it hasn't changed too much in all those years.   In fact, one of the original familes still owns and runs the caves.  When we arrived is was very foggy and pretty late in the day, so I had my doubts that we'd see any sea lions.   The clerk in the gift shop, however, was very nice and promised us a full refund if we were unable to see any sea lions.   Well, with an offer like that, how could I refuse?   I put a blindfold over my eyes, paid the admission and down we went into the caves.  

Sea Lion Caves in the 1930's.  

Sea Lion Caves today.   As you can tell, the changes are minimal...

As it turned out, the fog lifted, I lost my blindfold and we did indeed see some sea lions on the beach below.   However, there were no lions in the main attraction, the caves themselves.   It was explained that the sea lions seek the refuge of the caves in the winter months, when the ocean is cold and stormy.  They stay through early spring, when the babies are born and raised, then head out of the cave at summer.   Below are some pictures I pulled from the internet of the caves when the sea lions have taken up occupancy.

We made it  to Florence and decided to spend the night there.   Three factors made us decide to spend the night in Florence:

1. They had a Kozy Kitchen there, which is one of my favorite small chains of diners,
2. There was a big scary bridge at the end of town that I didn't want to cross in the dark, and
3. BJ's Ice Cream.   Florence is the home of BJ's ice cream.   They had 48 different flavors to choose from, and even more flavors in salt-water taffy.  Despite the fact that I had just eaten a big meal at Kozy Kitchen, we made a stop at BJ's and tried a few different flavors.   The ice cream did not top the ice cream at Handels or Fosselmans (reviewed HERE) but it was still great ice cream and well worth a stop.

 

We stayed at a hotel with no air conditioning.   They said that no one needs air conditioning by the ocean.   They were wrong.   After an uncomfortable night of sleep, we began our journey anew.   NEXT:   We journey back in time and face off with prehistoric creatures!   Really!   You won't want to miss the next thrilling chapter in our drive down the west coast!   I cheddar to think about it!