In the summer of 2008, my husband and I drove our brand new Subaru Forester from Mendocino County, California near the Pacific coast to North Carolina, up the east coast to Maine, and back west again. I remember the anticipation I felt the day we left. It was one of those times when you know you have to do something while you have the chance. Our trip lasted seven and a half weeks, and it was the experience of a lifetime.

These photos were taken on the way home, along the southern Oregon coast.

This interpretive sign created by the Oregon State Parks explains the biology of the carnivorous plants we viewed from a boardwalk into the heart of a peat bog. I had seen these “pitcher plants” before many years ago in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains near Quincy, California. They are amazing!