A Different Oregon Trail. No Wagons, but Lots of Mushrooms.

The Oregon Coast Trail is a 425-mile trail. We hiked around 5.3 miles of it. But that includes our 2-mile roundtrip detour down another "trail" that must have been forgotten about over the years, because it ended up being another bush-whacking expedition to nowhere.

The silver lining of this detour, and one that made the mistake totally worth it, was coming across this literal mushroom village. (Oh, by the way, Oregon has a TON of mushrooms. Everywhere. I don't know if it was just the time of year we were there, but I have never seen so many mushrooms or so many varieties of mushrooms anywhere.)

I was absolutely envisioning tiny fairies hiding under these little mushroom village caps. These photos don't really do it justice.

Anyway, once we made the decision to turn around and back track out of our detour, we made our way back across the road and found the real OCT on the other side. This section of the trail afforded us magnificent coastal views.

This was down at water level in Norton's Gulch.

And here's yet another (rather large) mushroom. Perfect home for a Smurf, right? I mean, these things just grow everywhere!

After all of our driving and hiking and exploring today, we decided that instead of grilling brats on the outdoor grill and eating them in the cold shanty, we earned some hot takeout pizza. That we consumed in our warm vehicle. While parked next to a pretty Christmas light display.

Tomorrow, we pack up our things and hit the road back to Tahoe, but not without making some incredible stops along Hwy 101 first.