Sparkling water... and grassless yards.

Oh boy did I have a nice week at the Oregon coast visiting my sister! We had such a good time and I got to see the ocean, eat lunch with a view of the crashing waves, and drive to lakes and a river. I was in Heaven for sure.

I didn't take any photos of the ocean as I have so many already. Here are a few from the past couple of years, "just because" I never get tired of looking at them.

I think the most fun was going down south to a little town about 20 miles from Florence (Reedsport) and driving to Winchester Bay to look around. Lots of little RV parks and fish shacks there.. very quaint. Then we went to lunch at the Schooner Inn which is a sweet cafe right on the old wharfs overlooking the Umpqua River. What a gorgeous river! The entire area there was made up of the old wharfs where canneries used to be many years ago.

You know me..... I was SO happy to be on the water!

There were several areas of boat docks and fishing boats.

What a beautiful area. The day was perfect!  And of course, I LOVED the sparkling water.  We even were fortunate to spy an Osprey nest on top of one of the railroad bridge spans.... we saw it from inside the museum next to the restaurant......... she had an old ship's telescope! The Osprey was sitting on her nest of eggs.

By the restaurant, there was a little museum and gift shop that we visited. Out front was a pretty painted seal and totem pole. There is so much history around this area. My sister told me that the entire town of Florence had a festival last year of the painted seals. There were about 10 of them all around town, and several artists had painted one each..... and then on the special day, people could bid on them to buy them. The proceeds went to help update their Event Center. 

Here's the sweet gazebo in Florence, OR Old Towne.......... it overlooks the Siuslaw River, as do many of the business and restaurants that line this street.  More water! I was so happy!

GRASSLESS (natural) YARDS:

My sister had moved to a new place... a gated community of about 800 homes. They are all either double wide or triple wide manufactured homes, and they were just gorgeous. I've never heard of this before, but there were NO LAWNS allowed! Everyone had to have "natural" yards, no grass, nada! I was amazed. We drove all through the community so I could see the natural yards. There were so many great ideas. 

Alot of difference sizes and colors of rock were used.. plus lots of ground cover.

This was all bark mulch plus rock in the middle that was sloped into a "bowl". It was really pretty.

Pretty shrubs everywhere, plus ground cover and grasses. Alot of the yards had little features such as bird baths, windmills, statutes, benches, etc.

This is from Pinterest, but I saw many front yards there very similar to this! I could picture this as being MY back  yard! (and it WILL be if our new lawn doesn't grow more. It's very sparse.) I really like the fire pit, and would have a water feature somewhere too.

The above two photos are also from Pinterest. Love the ground cover... and this photo above... love the bigger rocks (round ones) with the flowers dancing in between.  Sweet garden bench and trees.... sigh.

It was a very nice trip and I had a great visit with my sister, just me and her. Hubby stayed home to take care of our kitties and water the new lawn and flowers. 

Have a nice weekend everyone!!!

~Marilyn~