On the west side of the highway, midway between Port Orford and Gold Beach, you’ll come across one of the Oregon coast’s tackiest but most enduring and enjoyable tourist traps, the Prehistoric Gardens (daily; $7 adults, under 3 free; 541/332-4463). Standing out like a sore thumb on this otherwise unspoiled stretch of US-101, a collection of brightly colored, more or less life-sized dinosaur sculptures inhabits the evocatively lush green forest. Since 1953, when amateur paleontologist E. V. Nelson sculpted his first concrete T. rex, two dozen more have been added to the forest menagerie.