Heceta Head Lighthouse and Beach in OR

We played and explored on Heceta Beach just below the Heceta Head Lighthouse. The beach was beautiful. My children played in a small river that ran off into the ocean. They would gather large logs and rocks trying to build a bridge across the river.

We all played in and around the many large rocks located on the beach, which were covered in barnacles. We seen several anemones, star fish, sand dollars, and hermit crabs. There were tons of bright green and orange anemones and lots of sand dollars. The starfish were several colors too. We couldn't believe how the ocean waves would just push the sand dollars onto shore. It was the first time in my life I had seen living sand dollars. They were not the brilliant white sand dollars I envisioned but were dark gray and fuzzy looking. I wonder why aquariums never have living sand dollars? I made my children put the live sand dollars back in the ocean.

Their was a lot of pesty flies on this beach and it drove us crazy. Why were their so many flies? The beach was so beautiful and then the pesty flies tried to ruin it!

From the beach we walked up a hill on a designated path to the Heceta Head Lighthouse. It was a beautiful lighthouse. While I was here I chatted with the tour guide who was a volunteer. I decided when I retire I would like to be a volunteer tour guide at one of these lighthouses. How fun would that be?

I also loved learning the history about each lighthouse we visited. My favorite was learning about the ship "book mobiles" for this lighthouse, which carried crates full of books to each lighthouse with all their other necessities. The book crates were exchanged and carried from lighthouse to lighthouse, so the families who lived and worked at the lighthouses would have at least a variety of books to read.