RN: Here we are in Florence at the coastal retreat for Janis and Bill, two of my friends from those oh-so-long-ago (yikes, nearly 50 yrs ago) grad school days. Janis and I were in the same incoming class in Biology and we both made so many friends in our years at UCSD. Bill was in the neuroscience program along with our friends Jon and Susannah; Willard and Mark were also in Biology. What do we have in common? We’re all neuroscientists…we love good food and wine…and we love to hang-out

Florence is at the northern end of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, which stretches 40 miles from the Coos River. According to Wikipedia, these dunes are one of the largest expanse of temperate coastal dunes in the world. Some dunes reach 500 ft and they are the product of millions of years of erosion. The winds deposit the sand and shape it. Here in Florence, and elsewhere, the ecology of the dunes has been disturbed by the introduction of European beach grass, which squeezes out native plant species.

FE: Oh what fun it is to walk with friends on a blustery Northwest beach

Coax everybody into the same photo

Have a deep conversation with Solo, philosopher dog extraordinaire,

and reverting to a little boy playing sticks with the eager canines

RN. I don’t usually let dogs get this close to me, but I made an exception for Solo…

It wasn’t all beach and dogs today. We visited the Darlingtonia Natural Site. Huge crowd of pitcher plants!! Insects are attracted by their sweet flower-like smell and wander into the mouth, then can’t get out because they get disoriented by the light coming in through the top of the plant. They move down and get stuck past hairs that are pointing down, so they are trapped and eventually fall into the digestive juices at the bottom of the plant. Yum!

We also visited the Heceta Head Lighthouse. Here is the view of the coastal headlands south of the lighthouse with the bridge that carries US101.

A peek at the lighthouse…

We were super lucky to see a gray whale swimming and feeding in the water below the lighthouse. Thar she blows!!

In addition to the whale, we were also privileged to see all the birds in a huge rock below us take off, frightened by a bald eagle, but then a group of seagulls chased it off. Sorry- no photo- it happened way too fast!!

Back at the house, Janis is playing the mbira, a musical instrument from Zimbabwe. She is an expert embira player and enjoys performing with other musicians and even runs music workshops at their coastal retreat! While she started her career in neuroscience research at Univ. of Oregon, she finished it by teaching African studies and going to African countries to teach neuroscience. She is still actively involved and is planning to travel to Nigeria soon.

The mbira is a percussion instrument played using the thumb of the left hand and the thumb and forefinger of the right hand to flick keys to create melodic tones. Mbiras vary in complexity of key arrangement and musical keys. The one Janis is playing (see below) is one of the more complicated mbiras. When performing in public, the mbira is attached to a resonator that amplifies the tones.