Day 3 Pacific Coast

We left camp about 10:45 a.m. The sun was out but so was the fog. Weird weather for this Midwesterner.

We didn’t have far to travel today so we didn’t need to take lots of breaks but I thought you might like to see this one. This is called the Devil’s Churn. The waves come into this cut and turn every which way in their attempt to get back out again. If the water is flowing just right, it shoots way high up into the air. Trying to catch one of those big ones on film gave me a better appreciation for surfers trying to catch their big one.

  

I didn’t take a lot of written notes today because I was thinking about what it would be like to have a recorder with voice recognition software that could turn dictation into a computer document. It would be quite a challenge to do but it might be fun to make a record of everything along the coast relating to travel: all the parks, gas stations, restaurants, motels, etc. with the mile markers interspersed to help you find things. If I published that I think I would call it “Oregon Coast: Inch by Inch”. I’m not sure I could talk fast enough to get it all, though. There’s a lot out here.

We stopped for the night at the B & E Wayside RV Park in Florence, Oregon. That name didn’t make me happy since I read enough detective novels to associate the letters B & E with breaking and entering. It was an interesting park but I don’t think B & E is going to be a problem here.

The park is 95% asphalt. The RV spots are two wide so you can park your car/truck next to your RV. Every spot has a small storage shed in case you need to unload your car/truck before you can use it. Every spot has full hookups. There’s a large recreation building with lots of rooms for things like playing pool or working puzzles or watching TV or reading or having a party. I think the building must have been a house they added on to because the party room has a full kitchen and the bath back there has a tub. There are also restrooms in the front of the building and throughout the park.  In the one by us there’s a washer and dryer–one each in the men’s side and one each in the women’s side. We intended to do laundry here but we’ve gotten spoiled; doing it one load at a time no longer appeals to us. So I think we’ll wait another day.

TTYL,

Linda

Day 2 Pacific Coast

Sunsets over the ocean can be lovely. Here’s one at Nehalem Bay State Park on Oregon’s Pacific Coast.

  

This park has more people camping in it than I expected at this time of year so we dumped and filled before we left just in case we can’t get hookups further south on the coast.

We planned to stop early at Cape Lookout but there’s no ocean view there and it’s getting ready to rain again so we decided to go on to Beachside State Park where we should have a good view of the ocean.

Part of the road was away from the beach but we drove between a couple of sand dunes anyway. Dave commented on it being “beach away from the shore.”

We saw what looked like giant marshmallows. I’m sure they are some type of grain that was wrapped when it was harvested but the marshmallow look reminded me of the year my Christmas package from Mom included a little bag of marshmallows with a note that said, “You’ve been bad so here’s the scoop. All you’re getting is snowman poop.” She worried I would take it wrong but I thought it was hilarious.

Apparently fishing is a big day after Thanksgiving Day activity here. There are lots of boats out on every type of water. Most of them seem to have 3-5 people in them. Many have whole families.  

We stopped at a view area for a rest stop and photo op. See the house way down there? I wonder how often they get flooded? I wonder if they think it’s worth that to have that view?

A pickup passed us carrying more fishing poles than it had people. If you fish with more than one pole, what do you do if both get strikes at the same time?

The sun finally broke through! Happy, happy, happy.

Then we came to Cape Foulweather which lived up to its name.

In Newport we stopped at WalMart to pick up Dave’s prescription and a few supplies. This one didn’t have a grocery store so we didn’t get everything on our list.

We finally reached Beachside State Park only to see a sign saying they are closed for the winter! Man! We drove all this way to park on the beach! What to do; what to do?

Fortunately, Tillium Beach Campground in the Suislaw National Forest was not too much further down the road and we managed to find a campsite where we could see the beach from our driver/passenger seats. I stayed in my seat until it got dark enough I could no longer see the ocean.

We have no hookups here (they were all taken by people who got here earlier than we did) so we need to conserve power but I’m frustrated with Dave’s responses to that need. I asked him to play cards but he said no. So, I asked him to plug in my computer to the 12 volt system but he told me to run off the computer’s battery. I couldn’t get a decent wifi signal so I asked him to plug in the booster but, again, he said no. So I played a computer game until my battery got down to 3% where it threatened to loose its memory if I didn’t plug it in NOW.

In the meantime, Dave powered up his computer (using his battery, I admit) but he plugged in the booster so he could get a better signal. So I made him plug in my computer until the battery got up to 11% then he complained I had used up half the night’s electricity. So I gave up and went to bed at 9 p.m.

The next morning I checked the battery and the gauge says it’s full and the meter says 12.4 volts. Dave says we shouldn’t let it go below 12.2 volts or we risk damaging the batteries so we used about 2/3 of what we could have. It turns out his concern was that we would run out of power during the night so the furnace fan wouldn’t work and it would get VERY cold in here. I finally understood his worry. Then he spoiled it by saying we plan to replace these batteries in a couple of days anyway, so maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if they dropped below 12.2. Men!

TTYL,

Linda

Day 1 Pacific Coast

So now we are wandering south along the Pacific Coast. We started this morning at Fort Stevens State Park near Astoria, Oregon, by heading up on the dunes so Dave could get this trip’s pictures of the Peter Iredale, his favorite shipwreck. We park in an area that lets me watch the waves without having to negotiate the sand dunes while Dave wanders around to his heart’s content. That content came a little earlier than usual today since it’s November and the wind is blowing down from the mountains. Still we both got an ocean fix which was nice.

  

Fort Stevens campground has two major recycling areas.  That makes me happy.

We drove south along the coast to Seaside, Oregon, for lunch. This is my favorite coastal town. We’ve been here for several vacations when we stayed in an ocean side studio apartment right on the Prom. We walk more when we are in Seaside than we do anywhere else. Today we walked about a block from where we parked to the Pig N Pancake for lunch. This is one of our “regular” restaurants in Seaside. It’s not fancy and the service is slow but the food is good and the people watching is great. Seaside appears to have been doing some economic recovery since we were last here several years ago. There are some new businesses and things have been tidied up as well. I think I could live here year around but we’ve not spent much winter time here so maybe I couldn’t.

While we were in Seaside, Dave did our grocery shopping at Safeway. Doing grocery shopping the afternoon before Thanksgiving is not high on his list of enjoyable things but he’s out of milk so…

Today’s interesting street name was “Picture Window Lane”. I guess it makes sense that all the houses along the ocean would have picture windows but I wonder what marketing person decided to name the street that?

We also saw “Hug Point”. Do you suppose it’s related to Lovers’ Lane?

We stopped at several overlooks along the highways to take pictures of the ocean. Here’s some for you to enjoy.

  

Now we are in Nehalem Bay State Park. We will be here two nights. I’m hoping the weather will be nice enough tomorrow for us to play with the Segway seats to decide which to keep and which to send back. 

TTYL,

Linda

Shopping & Stuff

As soon as we got back into our RV after the anti-sway stuff was installed we could feel a difference. Hopefully, it will be enough of a difference to justify the time and money we spent getting it done. We think we will still have some sway when walking around but not any more wind rocking us to sleep and far less sway in the wind on the highway.

Dave has decided to buy a digital SLR camera. Apparently, he’s been researching this for awhile because he knows exactly what he wants and that Best Buy sells them. So, I sat in the RV researching state parks along the Oregon coast while he went into Best Buy. The camera he came back with is much bigger and heavier than I anticipated. So, we talked once again about how much weight we’ve been adding to the RV and that getting our solar system and water tank upgrade may put us over maximum weight.  

Dave’s decided he’d rather have the camera than the piano since he’s finding setting up and taking down the piano to be more of a nuisance than he thought it would be. So, we will be selling the piano. There’s a huge RV gathering in Arizona in January; maybe he’ll be able to find a buyer there. If any of you happen to be along the Oregon/California coast and would like to buy it before then, let us know, please.

In the meantime, we headed west along the Columbia River to the Oregon Coast where we’ll turn south until we need to turn inland again at Florence, Oregon, to get our solar system. That brought us back into the snow zone. It better not!

Then we traveled a stretch of road that felt like the Red Wing, Minnesota area: bluff, road, train, river. When we got up on the bluff looking down at the train it looked like it was Z scale.

We passed a street labeled “Scandinavian Cannery Row.”  Do you suppose that’s lutefisk, herring, and sardines?

Then we pulled into Fort Stevens State Park. Our favorite Oregon park. We spent two nights there so I got to have a day hanging out in my pjs while it rained. I like those days. Especially when we have Ritz crackers to munch on.  Mmmm.

TTYL,

Linda