When we drive over the bridge to get to Florence, Oregon, we were surprised to see sand dunes. BIG sand dunes! Who knew? We’re on the Pacific Coast and they have sand dunes! This has become one of our favorite places. Really cool waterfront town with great restaurants, cool little shops, dune buggy rides, a beach area, a lighthouse, crabs and fresh seafood and the town is littered with decorative seals everywhere.

We met some great friends during our stay and have remained in touch and have seen each other several times since then – Rodney and Linda Lyke / Mike and Sue Race.

Ken and I went crabbing with Rodney. We caught enough dungeness crabs to feed 6 of us, all you can eat, 2 nights in a row! Best crab ever! And then we played a few games of Jenga. Adult beverages may have been involved. We later met up with Rodney and Linda at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta in October of 2018 and had another great visit.

We happened to notice a sticker on Mike and Sue’s car that indicated they were into metal detecting too. Mike was gracious enough to stop by and tweak the settings on my metal detector. They have been metal detecting for many, many years and are a wealth of information. We even went to the beach and Mike planted items in the sand so we could test our detectors. Ken didn’t have one but Mike had an extra one and loaned it to him. We also took a dune buggy ride with them. It was so awesome. We have met up with Sue and Mike several times since Oregon. We’ve gone to several metal detecting rally’s with them and Ken finally caught the bug! He has his own machine now and has really gotten into coin collecting.

Unfortunately, we lost Mike in 2019. RIP. He was a very special person and we miss him a lot. We remain in contact with Sue though and hope to meet up with her again once this virus is over.

Florence holds a special place in our hearts and we hope to get back there again one day.