Winchester Bay, the Umpqua River Lighthouse, and Myrtlewood...

I could have stayed in bed all day with the rain coming down so hard, but checkout from the campsite was 11:00 and I needed to get cat food and cat sand, so I dragged myself up and at 'em.  Found a market, and even got a slice of pizza for myself :)

I drove the beach road, and went up to take the tour of the Umpqua River Lighthouse.  I really enjoyed learning the history and then getting to walk up the stairs of this still-working lighthouse and stick my head up into the Fresnel 1 prism!  It was awesome!  The 1000 watt bulb for the lighthouse is only two inches high, but there are about 1600 pieces of prism glass to throw the light far and wide, almost 20 miles out to sea.

Because it would entail using gold to color the prism glass red, the whole lens is made clear, and red panels of flat glass are placed on the outside of the lens to color the beam.

This is what the beams look like at night...

These Keeper's were out in the middle of nowhere, but still they had to have a uniform (that's government for you!)  The brass buttons had reliefs of lighthouses on them.

Also, because of those brass buttons, which were feared to scratch the lens, these guys also had cleaning aprons to wear OVER their uniforms.

Because of the sparkle from the lens, the Umpqua River Lighthouse has also been called "The Jewel of the Pacific Coast".

I also visited a Myrtlewood manufacturing place and learned all about the different types of colorings in myrtlewood.  The wood is found in Israel, and also along the Northern California and Oregon coasts.

Not too much later I pulled into the Visitor's Center in North Bend and picked up a map, some brochures and a lot of info from the nice lady there!  May stay a few days in the North Bend/Coos Bay/Charleston areas.

:)