Oregon Coast

Next on the agenda was the sand dunes and coast of Oregon so we packed up camp and headed west.  We actually are getting scarily good at taking down the tent and packing the car.  This morning probably took less than twenty minutes to do everything.  Go us. 

Once we were in the car we had a serious talk about what to do with Oso and what it meant for the rest of the trip.  After doing some research online (you can too) on Patellar Luxations in dogs we realized he wasn’t going to get any better with rest.  Earlier this spring he started limping after runs on the beach or a lot of activity.  The vet diagnosed him with PL (which basically means his kneecap slides way out of its groove) and told us surgery would have to happen at some point.  With our crazy summer, we thought this meant after we were settled back in Colorado this fall or winter.  With all of the hiking and fun times he has had this trip, his kneecap now will not even stay in place when we push it back.  After some phone calls we found a great veterinary surgical center in Portland and have an appointment and surgery time set for next Tuesday, the 30^th. 

While the timing is not ideal, we are glad the three of us got to see wonderful places like the Redwoods in California and Crater Lake in Oregon.  We will not be cutting the whole adventure too short as we still want to visit friends in Portland to celebrate the Fourth as planned and then Seattle for a long-overdue visit and wedding for one of Robbie’s good friends.  We will still do our best to fit in hikes and the like in between taking care of Oso post-op, but the next two weeks look to be action packed in a different way than anticipated. 

After a stressful morning we reached Florence, Oregon and had a greasy but yummy lunch that really hit the spot and took Oso for a little walk around the harbor area.  We quickly stopped by the sand dunes south of there and walked around in the howling wind for a bit before leaving due to potential for “sneaker” waves.  Robbie’s mom warned us repeatedly to be careful around the coasts of Oregon and it worked because we got away from the beautiful beach as soon as we could (kidding ;)).  We headed north and found a tiny campsite (which was the last available one for miles) nestled away in some trees before going to sleep.