Have you ever gone to the beach and had such terrible weather that you had to just stay inside and do nothing? How about going to your favorite beach and it was so crowded that you couldn't even turn around?

Well, read on, because I'm going to tell you about a spot in the center of enough great options that you will have something to do every day of your trip, rain or shine.

When we started going to the Oregon coast, we almost always went to Lincoln City. But it seemed that almost all of the activities that we were interested in were to the south of town. And the beaches in Lincoln City tended to be so crowded.

Then one year we reserved a house in Yachats for the weekend. I'll tell about that sometime, but it just did not work out.

Finally, we found a spot that we enjoyed so much that we went back year after year. We still have not done everything that we want to there. Our favorite spot is the Driftwood Shores Resort and Conference Center. We saw an advertisement for it in the Oregon Coast magazine and it looked good. So we tried it.

With 4 kids, many motels were a bit crowded for us. But Driftwood Shores has many different size rooms and suites to suit every size family. Our favorite room was one of the family suites that had two bedrooms. One with a king size bed and private bathroom. The other bedroom had two beds and then there was a living room and kitchen with dinette.

The money that we saved by doing most of our own cooking easily made up for any little extra that room cost us. And we certainly enjoyed having our own wood burning fireplace.

If we ran out of other things to do, the indoor spa and pool were always a favorite.Every room overlooks about ten miles of beach.

The most people we ever saw on the beach was about five families. The reason is that the Driftwood Shores is north of town in the middle of a large residential area. So it is isolated from the mainstream tourist traffic.

From this central location, there are many activities within ten miles. A few miles to the north is the famous Sea Lion Caves which is worth at least one visit. This is the largest cave in the world where Sea Lions live and breed.

During the summer, most of the Sea Lions are out of the cave, but there are still enough inside that you have to speak in a loud voice to hear each other.

Just to the south of town are miles and miles of sand dunes great for hiking and some areas allow dune buggies as well. Great dining areas, miniature golf, gift shops and even a river boat round out the local activities.

If you are willing to travel a bit farther, you will find the Oregon Coast aquarium to the north and the West Coast Game Park in Bandon.Overall, this is the one spot that we have found that provided plenty to do for a busy family even if it rains the whole two weeks you have at the beach.