Northern coast Oregon

We stayed three nights at Fort Stevens State Park.  We had stayed here before and it rained most of the time and it happened again!  The first day was the only clear day.  We went into Astoria for the Sunday farmers market, lunch, and the historic trolley ride.  On the ride the conductors tell you information about the city and they pointed out the abundant harbor seal population at the harbor.

On our second morning, Dean, Chica and I walked, in the rain, to see an old shipwreck at the beach.  The trails in Fort Stevens SP are lovely.

In the afternoon we drove to Cannon Beach.  It was wind and rainy but we managed to see the scenic shoreline and Haystack rock.  Mary had a hard time seeing with her hood pulled over her eyes.

Our next destination was Tillamook.  We stayed at the Elks campground, south of town.  Kelly and Mary had only two more days with us since they needed to get back to Las Vegas.  We went to the Tillamook Cheese factory (twice) and drove the Cape Meares scenic route.  On this scenic route along the ocean we stopped at the fishing village of Netarts for lunch at the Schooner (fish and chips) and walked to Cape Meares lighthouse and Octopus tree (tree with many arms and very old).

We said our goodbyes to Kelly and Mary on Friday (8/4).  We enjoyed the time we spent with them and hopefully they got to see some interesting sites through Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.  And hopefully, they will venture out into the RV world again and see more!

We stayed around Tillamook for a few more days.  One day we took a nice hike to Munson falls (second highest falls in Oregon).

Chuck and Jan Moore arrived on Sunday and we are now traveling with them.  We went with the Moores to McMinnville to see the Spruce Goose at the Evergreen Aviation Museum.

Now we are parked at the Chinook Winds casino at Lincoln City (free), walking distance to beach is 5 minutes!  My next blog will cover this area and our Crab-a-rang in Winchester Bay.

Kansas thru Washington

I am really behind in my blogging so I will try to do two blogs today to catch up.

After we left Lewis and Clark State Park near Atchinson, KS, we spent the first night at a COE campground (Methodist Cove) near Harlan lake in Nebraska.  This is a beautiful park with a lot of sites located very close to the lake.  Still very hot so we are running our air.

The next night was in a really nice but small campground between Cheyenne and Laramie called Vedauwoo Rec Area.  It is not big rig friendly except for a couple of sites.  Thank goodness we got there early.  This area has a lot of very large rocks and I got a quick picture of a deer close to camp.

We did not need the air as this park elevation is around 8000 ft.

We drove to Palisades Res., just inside Idaho, and found a really nice National Forest CG at the base of the dam.  We enjoyed this CG so much we ended up staying 3 nights.  While we were there we spotted many boondocking areas across the Snake river.  Days End (Escapes) has the listings now.

After three days we headed West and got into smoke from the Forest fires around Twin Falls, Idaho.  And we never really got totally away from the smoke until we got to Portland, OR.  

We met up with my brother, Kelly, and sister-in-law, Mary, at Ketchum, Idaho and found a nice boondocking spot near Stanley, Idaho.  We went from very hot to very cold when the first night the temp went close to freezing.  We stayed two nights and were joined one night by Lee and Bob Jusseaume who were on their way back to AZ after traveling since May.

Working our way West we stopped at Cascade Lake and Catfish Junction, on the banks of the Snake, for one night each ( still in Idaho).  The drive was beautiful but still a lot of smoke in the air.

Entering Oregon, we made a quick stop at the Pendleton factory in Pendleton and stayed overnight at Hermiston.  We followed the Columbia River Gorge to Hood River the next day and stayed 4 nights at Toll Bridge County Park.  This is a really nice park south of Hood River about 15 miles.  We did the fruit loop - lots of produce stands and wineries.  This was the only clear day, because of the smoke, that we could see Mt Hood.

I drove Kelly and Mary to Multnomah Falls on Saturday (big mistake) and dropped them off at the entrance.  I drove for 20 minutes and still could not find a parking place so they got to see the falls but I didn't.  Oh well, I had saw it when we were here before.  The highlight of our stay in the Hood River area was seeing cousin Mo and her husband Miles who live outside of Lyle, WA. They have a beautiful piece of property in a canyon, totally off the grid.

We left Hood River and stayed a few nights at the Vancouver Elks (WA).  Did some shopping and visited with some friends.

Finally we reached the West coast (Long Besch, WA) and stayed at Cranberry RV park for three nights.  The first day we walked to the beach and had a HH on the beach.  Day two, we bought oysters in Oysterville and walked around the historic district, then went into Long Beach to do more walking by the beach and enjoy a wonderful meal at the Lost Roo.

Above - my first selfie!

The last day in the Long Beach area was very windy and rainy.  In fact, they recorded 90 mph gusts in some places.  We ventured out to buy fresh fish in Llwaco and go to Cape Disappointment.  Kelly, Dean and I walked to the North Lighthouse, which was easy until we broke away from the ground cover.  Then we almost got blown over the cliff.  The wind was the worst I have ever been in.  All the electricity for the park and Llwaco was out.  We went to the Intrepretive center but they had no electricity and did not recommend us walking to the other lighthouse because lots of limbs were falling.    What a wild day!

The next day we drove over the big bridge into Oregon.  So my next post, maybe this afternoon, will be  from our first week in Oregon.