We started our Friday beach tour before 10 AM. We weren’t sure where we would end up at the end of the day, but we had another Elks Lodge in mind. We continued our route down the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) through the picturesque town of Bandon.
We of course stopped at most of the pull-offs to enjoy the views. The weather was nice again, but a little windy.
We wanted to stop at Oregon’s westernmost lighthouse, so just South of the small town of Sixes, we turned West.
This is the road to the Cape Blanco Lighthouse. The lighthouse is a 5 mile side trip off the PCH.
Notice below how I utilized my keen photographic skills and managed to capture the lighthouse inside the hole at the top of this sign 🙂
We were able to park the Urban Escape Vehicle in the large turn-around parking area located a little ways from the lighthouse.
It was a decent hike from the parking area to the lighthouse as you can see from this photo with Stilla in the foreground.
When we arrived at the gift shop/greeting area that is separate from the lighthouse, I immediately recognized Chris & Cherie from their full-timing RV blog, “Technomadia”. I have followed their blog for quite a while and especially enjoy their tips for staying connected on the road. They are volunteer hosts here at the lighthouse. And guess what – I found out that another couple is also volunteer hosting here at the same time – Paul & Nina from “Wheelingit”. I also follow their blog, they were up at the lighthouse whereas Chris & Cherie were down at the gift shop doing the meeting & greeting. Here I posed with Chris & Cherie in front of the lighthouse. It was neat to finally meet them in person after reading their blog all this time.. it’s like meeting celebrities!
Another view of the Cape Blanco Lighthouse which was built in 1870.
Cape Blanco Lighthouse.
Here’s a view of where we are on the Rand-McNally.
We snacked in the Coach before we continued on down Hwy 101. It was nice to get out of the wind here. Then we motored on.
Here are some views down around the town of Port Orford.
Sometimes little Coach doesn’t want to get out of the Coach, he’d rather just watch us silly humans take pictures.
Sometimes there weren’t any pull-offs for pictures, so I just took pics from the cockpit.
Near the town of Gold Beach we pulled into the parking area for the Prehistoric Gardens.
Have you ever had this view outside your window?
They wanted too much for admission. $12 per person just didn’t register on my value-meter, so we passed. Coach was more interested in the chipmunks and bluejays anyway..
I took advantage of a photo-op along a wide pull-off just North of Gold Beach to get a possible new Cover Photo for the blog or maybe Facebook.
Another historical bridge leading into Gold Beach.
More over-the-road pics:
This was a nice rest area with a hiking trail – Arch Rock.
Located here:
A couple artists were using watercolors to capture the view.
Then, we drove over the highest bridge in Oregon – at least, that’s what the sign says.
We ended up at the Elks Lodge in Brookings, OR. Total distance traveled for the day was a little less that 90 miles. The Lodge RV Park, located in their parking lot, had full hook-ups with the exception of sewer. A dump station is on site. They had a suggested donation of $18 per night, and it was Friday which at most Lodges we’ve visited, means they serve dinner. Tonights menu included Fish & Chips or Hamburgers. Stilla had the fish and I had a cheeseburger that was undercooked. It must have been a bad day for the waitress, I think she quit while we were there. (Hopefully not because of my undercooked burger). Stilla played a little on the slots. I forgot to take pictures of our RV site and the lodge.
After our dinner, we drove around town and checked out the harbor and then decided to drive a couple miles South of town to a nice beach where we could enjoy the sunset. The beach happened to be just across the California border. So here’s the sunset from sunny California… it looked the same to me as the one in Oregon. What do you think?
We left the Three Rivers Casino RV parking lot by 10 AM on Thursday. It rained off and on all night. It was still overcast and a little foggy in the morning, but by the time we made our first stop in Reedsport, the sun was out again.
We wanted to check out the sand dunes that I had read and heard so much about. All the tourist guidebooks and pamphlets we picked up along our Hwy 101 travels, mention this “must-see” area when visiting the Oregon coast. Here’s my friend Wikipedia’s scoop on the place: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Dunes_National_Recreation_Area
The only problem with visiting the 40 miles of dunes, is figuring out which areas I can get into – and more importantly, back out of – with a 38 1/2 ft Motorhome pulling a Silverado. So, my solution was to stop at the Oregon Dunes Visitor Center in Reedsport, OR. The nice power ranger, er, I mean park ranger behind the counter gave us maps and info flyers but she was unsure which access roads were big-rig friendly. So to be safe, I asked her if we could leave our motorhome in the parking lot while we unhooked our truck and drove on to check it out. She said no problem. Here’s a picture of the Visitor Center parking lot where we left the Urban Escape Vehicle for awhile.
Here are the informational placards in front of the Visitor Center for your viewing pleasure:
We chose the Umpqua Dunes & Beach Access Road for two reasons; 1) It was just South of town and therefore the closest, and 2) There was another lighthouse there.
Our first stop was at the beach. Here you can see the lighthouse in the background.
Little Coach had fun once again running around on the beach. He was as curious as I was about what all those floats (drums) were about in the water between the two jettys. I’m guessing they might have something to do with an oyster farm or some such thing. I forgot to ask someone.. so I guess, it’ll remain a mystery.
Here’s some pics of the dunes. Pretty impressive, sure wish I had my ATV. It also got me to wondering if my fine younger brother in Casa Grande, AZ is taking care of my Can Am. I left it at his 5-acre “dirt farm” (his term, not mine) back in January. I’ve heard a lot about sand storms and floods in that part of the country. HMMM?
We watched some ATVs running up and down this hilltop for awhile, pretty awesome.
And then of course, we had to check out another lighthouse.
The museum near the lighthouse was pretty cool. We took a tour, but this time I’ll spare you the inside pictures.
Boat in front of the Umqua River Lighthouse Museum.I made Stilla stop and turn around for a picture in front of the museum… she likes it when I do that.RV parking at the Lighthouse Museum. I’m pretty sure they belong to volunteers. I’ve read a blog or two of some folks that do this sort of thing pretty often.
Here’s the view back to the beach over some dunes from a viewing platform in front of the lighthouse, which also doubles as a whale watching station… we didn’t see any whales 🙁
After our lighthouse, beach, and dune excursion… we went back to the Visitor Center where we had left the Motorhome and made ourselves lunch. Then we headed on South again. Here’s another one of those bridges designed and built by McCullough, this is the one over Coos Bay leading into North Bend.
Once through the towns of North Bend and then Coos Bay we motored on down towards Bandon. Our destination for the day is Bullards Beach State Park, and guess what… they have a lighthouse there! Here’s the Coquille River Lighthouse built in 1896.
We rode our bikes here from our RV site. We didn’t know that it was 3 miles, one way. Oh well, the exercise did us some good and the weather was perfect.
We also spent some time on the beach here as well. Coach always likes that!
And now, I saved the best for last… as I was pulling into our designated spot at the RV park, I tagged this pole with the Coach right behind the front passenger side tire.
When we arrived around 4:30 PM, we unhooked at the park entrance and Stilla followed me in the truck to our site. They only had a few sites left when we checked in and this was supposed to be the largest of those according to the power ranger at the gate that took my $28.
As you can (hopefully) see from this pic, our site is on the left where the Silverado is parked. It’s a back-in site, and the pole I hit is at the entrance to the site on the right. I guess I was so worried about clearing the tree and bushes on the left, that when I pulled partially into the site on the right to get positioned to back into our site, I overlooked the pole because I had already passed it and I was busy looking in my left mirror to make sure the rear cleared. When I turned the wheel left and backed up, I heard the sickening thump and screech. The bottom-line is that I should have waited for Stilla to ground guide me, which is our normal procedure. What a bone-head move.
Here’s the damage.
And here’s what it looks like now after a lot of frantic polishing. I found a (somewhat) appropriate sticker to put over the biggest scrape… So what do you think? Go ahead… I can take it 🙂
Total distance travelled for the day was 70 miles.
Stay tuned for more Urban Escape Vehicle adventures…
We decided to check out the Three Rivers Casino & Hotel on Wednesday. Website Link: http://threeriverscasino.com/hotel Parking is free, and Stilla had her casino itch, so we packed up and headed on over. Total travel distance for the day: 6 miles. We arrived around noon-time.
The casino simply asks that you register at the security desk so they can monitor the parking area and keep people from abusing the privilege.
It rained off and on all day. Nothing much, mostly drizzle, just enough to keep everything wet all day. I tucked the truck underneath the awning to help keep the Harley somewhat dry.
Here’s our view this morning (Thursday).
We didn’t spend the whole day in the casino. We took advantage of the buffet for $10 to do a late lunch / early dinner at around 3 PM and then did a little shopping in town. In the evening we went back in for a few hours and played the slots. We pretty much broke even, so that’s a good thing 🙂
I did some more research on destinations to our South, so check back in to see where we end up.
Tuesday was very nice weather-wise. We left the AC(s) on in the Coach for the dog and headed back North on 101 a few miles to the Sea Lion Cave.
Here’s a picture of the building which doubles as the entrance point and gift shop. We took this pic yesterday at a pull-off on the way down to the RV Park.
This is as close as we got to Sea Lions for the day (pic below). We were told that at this time of year, they are all out in the ocean “fattening” themselves up for winter. They offered a discounted price and a “rain-check” if you come back within a year. And oh yeah, they gave me a free popcorn for being a veteran. Their discounted price was still rather high at $24 for the two of us. Since we’re only here once, and here now… we paid and walked down to the pathways behind the building. One of the two paths goes North down to a viewpoint and the other goes South to the elevator that takes you to the cave.
Lookout point along the pathway to the Sea Lion Cave elevator. No whales here today 🙁One of the pathways and a lookout point behind the entrance of the Sea Lion Cave.Looking back up at the Sea Lion Cave entrance building and gift shop from the North pathway.Pathway to the Sea Lion Cave elevator with Lighthouse in the background.
Looking back up at the Sea Lion Cave entrance building and gift shop from the South pathway.
Here’s the elevator that takes you down to the cave.
Here’s the empty cave. Still impressive even without sea lions.
This answers one of the questions you always wondered about but were afraid to ask:
The Sea Lion Cave has a secondary lookout point with a view of the Heceta Head Lighthouse.
These next three pictures were taken with my camera instead of the iPhone. I was able to zoom in on the only “real” sea lions that we would see today.
Nice view of the Heceta Head Lighthouse as seen from the Sea Lion Cave that would be our next destination.
We toured through the gift shop at the entrance after going back up the elevator and long pathway.
I spotted these Cool refrigerator magnets in the gift shop that I probably would have purchased before we went full-timing in the RV. RV style refrigerators are generally not conducive to magnets. Although our refrigerator is a residential style Amana stainless model it still won’t hold magnets – besides, who would want to keep picking magnets up off the floor all the time after a road trip?
We were a little disappointed with not seeing sea lions, except for the couple we were able to see from a distance out at sea. But, the cave was definitely worth seeing.
We left the Sea Lion Cave and went up the road to the Heceta Head Lighthouse which was our next intended destination for the day. We drove through a tunnel and across a bridge and then looped back under the bridge to the parking lot.
And of course, we get to pay for this pleasure.
Here’s the tunnel and bridge we went through and crossed over then under to get to the parking lot.
A little interesting trivia on the bridge.
We pulled the folding chairs out of the back of the Silverado and sat on the beach awhile. We enjoyed the sandwiches we had made to take along with us today. Mine was peanut butter and jelly, made with the cranberry jam we bought while on Long Beach.
When we returned to our chairs after walking around on the beach, we found that this bird had pecked away at our plastic trash bag we left hanging on one of the chairs. He must like cranberry jam.
How about some more pics on the beach:
After our lunch on the beach, we hiked up the pathway to tour the lighthouse.
Informational placard on the pathway to the lighthouse.
And here it is! Another lighthouse… you haven’t seen enough of these in this blog yet, right?
The tour was free. They only take groups of 4-5 people at a time to limit the weight and vibration on the spiral staircase.
Picture of a picture – Lighthouse keepers and their families taken in 1904.Out volunteer tour guide leading us up the spiral staircase.
Glass inserts in the floor, as seen from underneath, around the rotating light.
And of course, we had to do the selfie while we were at the lighthouse.
After our two tours for the day, we headed back to the Coach to get little Coach (our dog). Once again, he was just just fine.
We did some exploratory driving around the town of Florence. It turns out that it is only 1 about 1.5 miles South of the Elks RV Park where we are at.
There seem to be a lot of sand dunes around this area. Here’s a view across the channel below.
We walked around the “Old Town Florence” and stopped here for some calamari and liquid refreshments.
We toured through the little shops in the area and found a doggie carry bag. It’s like a backpack but for front use. I guess you could call it a frontpack, right? It should come in handy on the rare times we are allowed to take dogs on hikes in the future. So we bought it and put it to use right away.
We then drove over to the Elks Lodge in town to check it out. As I mentioned in a previous post, they also have RV parking with hook-ups – cost is $15. Here’s a pic.
View of the Lodge parking lot.
We went inside and ended up staying for Bingo. Yes, I said Bingo. It’s was kind of fun, although we didn’t win anything. We stayed until 9 PM. We were able to bring little Coach inside with us. He stayed in his new frontpack on my lap while we marked bingo cards.
The lodge also had burgers, dogs, and fries to order courtesy of the vets group. We shared some fries and Stilla had a kosher dog. After bingo, we left about $10 in the slots and then headed home.
Tomorrow (Wednesday) we plan on packing up and driving over to a local casino parking lot that we scoped out while driving around town earlier. There were lots of motorhomes and RVs in the free parking area. Free sounds good for a day… so I’ll post from there tomorrow.
We said goodbye to our neighbors, Orman & Susie Claxton on Monday morning and were on the road by noon. Our destination for the day was the Elks RV Park near Florence, Oregon. We got the tip for this park from Orman & Susie and it was also mentioned by Mary Langord (Alpine Coach Association) on Facebook. Thanks guys… and it was great seeing you again O&S!
The sky was overcast when we left Tillamook and after a few miles it got worse. It seemed like we drove straight into a fog bank that stayed with us for most of the drive.
We pulled into a rest area with a view of the ocean (picture above) but it was too foggy to see very much. I noticed a couple that had stopped in the rest area in their car and they were taking pictures of our rig. The guy walked over to ask about how we towed the truck. It turns out the couple was from Switzerland and the guy was fascinated by the set up. I answered his questions, he spoke pretty good English. Then Stilla jumped in and we were all talking German. The Swiss couple was doing a 3 week whirlwind tour, trying to see as much as possible of the West coast in the short time they had. We parted ways after exchanging pleasantries.
Here are some pictures we snapped while heading down the Pacific Coast Byway:
I caught a picture of the billboard for the Sea Lion Caves that we heard about. We intend to visit there on Tuesday.
The sun actually peeked out once or twice during the trip. I couldn’t help but notice that lots of the trees on the beach-side of the road were all permanently deformed from the constant wind from the ocean.
The shocks on the Coach sure got a good workout today! Many stretches of Hwy 101 were full of bumps and dips.
At one point – after missing a nice looking pull-off with a view because we were traveling too fast to get slowed down – a second pull-off came into view around a corner… I made a split-second decision to turn in. After I was already committed to the entrance, I saw the sign “Not Recommended for RVs or Trailers”. Now, I ask you, Why can’t they put those signs before the entrance? Anyway, we had to disconnect and jockey around to get back out of there, and darn it – the view wasn’t even worth it. This makes the second time in our travels over the last 4 months that we had to unhook the truck to get turned around somewhere. Oh well, Life is still Good 🙂
We did another stop later at this pull-off where we could look down the cliffs at the ocean. It remained foggy, cold, and sometimes drizzly all day.
We got to the park shortly before 4 PM. Travel distance for the day was about 110 miles.
It’s $20 per night for full hook-ups but no sewer. We can dump on the way out. We paid for two nights and made sure we had the option to extend if we wanted without having to move sites.
Our site at the Elks Lodge RV Park near Florence, OR
I’m starting to see a theme here on the West coast with these Elks Lodges and their RV Parks… this will be the second RV Park we’ve visited that is not physically located at the Elks Lodge itself. However, I understand that the Florence Elks Lodge that owns this park does in fact have more RV parking at their lodge in town. This park is really nice! Maybe even nicer than the one we just left in Tillamook.
For the rest of the day, we just chilled out and mostly stayed inside. I heated up some of those pre-cooked pork ribs for dinner by putting them in a pan on the stove… it worked out pretty well. It was just too chilly outside to break out the grill. Plus, who really likes to clean the grill up after all that BBQ sauce gets everywhere?
Well, that’s all for now folks… check back in to hear how our Tuesday sight-seeing goes… Stilla is still on the look out for whales, and we hope to check sea lions off our list if we visit the caves as planned.
Welcome to another hot and sunny day (Sunday, 14 Sept) in Tillamook, Oregon. Today we wanted to get out and see the Air Museum and the local cheese factory… and we did! Follow along on our fun-filled day with lots of pictures 🙂
Stilla did the Skype thing to Germany with her brother and sister-in-law, Stefan & Annerose while I finished up the previous days blog post and had breakfast. We got a late start, but finally got on the road around 11 AM. We set the thermostat for 72 degrees and left the air conditioners on for little Coach since we knew he wouldn’t be allowed into any of our proposed destinations for the day.
Our site on Sunday morning at the Tillamook RV Park
Our first stop was the Tillamook Air Museum. We had stopped by there yesterday to check on rates, hours, and dog-friendliness so you may remember these next two pictures I posted already.
Signage for the Air Museum at the corner of Hwy 101 and Long Prairie Rd.
Here’s the giant hangar as viewed from Hwy 101 aka The Pacific Coast Highway.
The Air Museum also has it’s own website which is a great source for specific aircraft information: http://www.tillamookair.com/aircraft/ Go ahead, click on the link… don’t be afraid.
Here is the hangar door as viewed from the inside.
I noticed this basketball hoop mounted above the hangar door. Someone had a good sense of humor, it’s probably 200 feet from the ground. I’d like to see the person that could make that jump shot.
Interior view of the massive hangar.
The museum offered a discount for military and veterans, so we got in for $7 each. We went into their theater and viewed the 16 minute video on the history of this unique structure. After watching the film, we spent a long time in the adjoining room that was loaded with dioramas, models, picture boards, and display cases of historical stuff that was related to the hangar and/or WWII. Sorry, no pictures here… I had to limit the size of today’s post somehow, right?
Here is a picture of a picture depicting what it looked like back in the day when the blimps were inside.
Although you can’t tell from this picture… This was a HUGE billboard mounted on an inside wall of the hangar depicting the varied sizes of blimps. This hangar was originally built for the K-Class.
There were originally two of these hangars here. We learned that the other hangar was destroyed in a spectacular fire. It was being used to store hay from the adjacent farms at the time.
The following pictures are of some of the aircraft we viewed:
We met up again with our neighbor’s from the RV Park… Orman and Susie Claxton! I mentioned in an earlier post, that we know them from the Alpine Coach Association Group and recent Redmond FMCA Rally that we attended together. We noticed their coach, a Beaver, when we first pulled into the park so we made sure to park next to them. We kept bumping into them throughout the day… not a bad thing.
One interesting tidbit we discovered while walking through the museum hangar, is that they have RV’s stored here in the back half. I figured it must be a way to increase their income. Wouldn’t it be cool if they let you camp there with hook-ups?
We then walked outside to view the funny looking plane… it was like the proverbial elephant in the room. Behold a Mini-Guppy.
For you mechanical techno-geeks out there, they had some cool engine displays… some of them cut-outs. These were really cool.
How about an old V8? Neat, huh?
Here’s proof that you can put anything on a trailer these days.
We visited the snack bar for an espresso.
And then wandered through the gift shop. Didn’t find anything I couldn’t live without.
Neat picture of a picture again… this guy flew through the hangar back in 1950 as part of an air show stunt.
After we got our fill of all things aviation related – we headed over to the Tillamook Cheese Factory on the other side of town. It was certainly a popular place as evidenced by the overflowing parking lot. There were even a few rows of Motorhomes parked on the outside edges.
I just had to join others in getting my picture taken in the VW bus that was part of the lobby display.
View of the inner workings at the cheese factory… pics didn’t take so well through the glass panes. I remember thinking it’s a good thing we weren’t looking at a sausage factory 🙂
The upstairs hallway with the factory viewing windows on both sides.
There was a long line at the cheese sampling stations.
As a matter of fact, there were long lines everywhere here, in the lobby store, the cafe, the snack bar, the ice cream counter, etc., What a popular tourist trap, er, I mean, attraction.
I bought one of these Oregon Coast 101 stickers to add to my collection on the inside of the basement doors of the Urban Escape Vehicle.
We saw Orman & Susie Claxton again with ice-cream in hand while we were here, but no picture this time.
And I almost bought this T-shirt, but decided it wasn’t in the budget.
Next, we drove back into town to check out the Blue Heron Cheese Company. We had seen an advertisement for free wine and cheese tasting.
There were a couple of cool vehicles on display outside the building.
We met up with Orman & Susie again! We sampled some wines together and ended up buying a bottle called “Blue Heron Riesling”.
We got back to the RV Park with plenty of time left to enjoy the sunshine and walk Coach through the campground. He was VERY happy to see us again after being cooped up all alone for the day 🙁 Everything was fine with him and there were no “surprises” in the Motorhome. Good dog.
View of the lower picnic grounds area at the Tillamook Elks RV Park.View of the BBQ grill shelter in the lower picnic area at the Tillamook Elks RV Park.View of the lower picnic grounds at the Tillamook Elks RV Park.
This park has the biggest set of horseshoe pits I’ve ever seen. Or are these possibly grave sites? HMMM.
View of the horseshoe pits on the lower picnic grounds at the Tillamook Elks RV Park.View between the two rows of RVs at the Tillamook Elks RV Park.View of the community multi-use house at the Tillamook Elks RV Park.
We spent a little time talking to Orman & Susie as the sun went down. We got a few tips from them on future places to visit and recommendations on RV Parks. Thanks Orman & Susie! Hope to see you down the road again soon. It got cold pretty quick after the sun went down, so we retired to our respective Coaches to call it a night.
I did some research, and called ahead to the Elks Lodge in Florence, OR to reserve a spot for tomorrow. So another moving day is on tap for Monday. See you tomorrow.
Another hot, sunny day here on Saturday (13 Sept) in Tillamook, OR. We’ve been told that this nice weather is highly unusual for this time of year. We decided to get out and enjoy it for most of the day.
But first, here’s a morning picture of our RV site at the Elks RV Park. It’s nice having full hook-ups and a good internet connection for a change. We have WiFi through the park and also have good AT&T 4G signal on the iPhones. We haven’t even turned on the MiFi JetPack with Verizon.
The RV Park hostess provided a map yesterday at check-in that was chock full of tourist attractions and activities, so with map in hand, we headed out for another day-trip.
We decided to take a loop (tip was courtesy of our neighbor Susie Claxton) by going South from the RV Park which is just off Hwy 101 and then turning West to skirt along the coast going North again on Three Capes Road. We left the park at 10 AM. Shortly after driving South, we saw a sign for Munson Creek Falls to the East. We decided to check it out… you can never get enough falls, right? It was only 1-1/2 miles off our intended route on a mostly bumpy dirt road. Once in the turn-around parking lot, we saw that it was a 1/4 mile hike. We felt up to that.
The trail was nice and reminded us of being back in the Hoh Rainforest again. We were the first people there, but it was short-lived. As soon as we got on the trail we saw about 4 other vehicles pull into the parking area too.
The trail was closed just a little ways before the bottom of the falls. This is as close as we could get (pic below). We said, “Ooh, Aah”, took a picture, and headed back. We passed the many other folks along the trail that were coming in while stopping to answer the common question: “What kind of dog is that?”
After the falls, we got back on Hwy 101 for a short distance before turning West as planned. We skirted the coast on the unusually wavy and bumpy road in dire need of repair. We passed the seemingly popular Whiskey Creek Fish Hatchery, there were absolutely no parking spots left, even the sides of the road were full of cars, so we drove on.
We kept our eyes open for a place to stop and eat breakfast, but found nothing. We didn’t eat before we left this morning 🙁
We stopped at this nice beach that was being enjoyed by lots of folks out for the weekend. There were signs posted that said not to approach the sea lions, but we didn’t see any.
We then drove to Cape Meares. It turns out the road past this point was closed, so we would have to double back a ways to get to Tillamook… still no sign of a restaurant or cafe to get breakfast at.
But, here’s a sign that describes Cape Meares:
And a highly ornate informational kiosk in the parking area for the Cape Meares Lighthouse.
We walked down to the lighthouse and took pictures of the scenery along the way.
Here I tried to zoom in on some sea lions or other such related critters that were hanging out on the rocky coastline below.
View from near the lighthouse.
We took turns taking the free tour through the lighthouse. They didn’t allow dogs.
I took some pictures inside the lighthouse:
The floor above that surrounds the light had glass inserts in the floor.
View from inside the lighthouse at the top.
We took a different trail back up to the parking lot.
We looked real hard… but didn’t get to see any whales, Stilla was disappointed.
Back at the parking lot, there was a relatively short path that led up the hill to an Octopus Tree. Here’s the informational placard.
Pretty cool in a weird kind of way.
We then took the long way around to get back to Hwy 101 because of the road closure… still didn’t see a place to get breakfast! So when we got into the town of Tillamook, we spotted a Pancake House that served breakfast all day. We found a spot out front, put up the sun-visors, and cracked the windows for Coach while we went in and got a late breakfast finally.
After breakfast, er lunch, we debated on whether to go to the Cheese Factory or the Air Museum. We figured the Cheese Factory definitely didn’t allow dogs, so we drove to the Air Museum to see if they were dog-friendly. They weren’t. But we found out they have a nice cafe just inside their doorway and it’s only a $7 entrance fee for veterans. But it was too hot to leave Coach in the Silverado so we headed back to the RV Park with the thought we could leave Coach in the air-conditioned Motorhome. But, I think we were both feeling tired and lethargic from the big breakfast, so we just hung out at the Park the rest of the day instead of going back. There’s always tomorrow, right?
I spent time in the afternoon-evening to catch up on my blog post for the trip down here. And here I am again this morning (Sunday) catching up on this blog post for Saturday. Time to close this post and head out for more adventures…
It’s time to move on again today, Friday (12 Sept). We’ve really enjoyed this state park. Would definitely come here again to Cape Disappointment if the opportunity arises in the future.
We met a nice couple that was camped next to us, they come here every year from Eatonville, WA. My neighbor’s name was Brian, but I don’t think I caught his wife’s name. Brian was interested in tips on diesel pushers and was full of questions. He was thinking of getting a Class A in the future. I tried to be as informative as I could without seeming biased… hard for us Alpine Coach owners, eh? Anyway, safe travels Brian – good luck with your search and I hope I was able to help.
Before we packed up, we took another morning walk. I noticed a little-used trail behind our camping circle, so we followed it through the woods towards the cliffs as we swatted away spider webs across the path.
We ended up finding a couple of hidden caves.
And then, I’m convinced we found the remains of an old ship wreck hidden in the trees near the cliffs. The remaining wood is covered with moss and pine needles… What do you think? Stilla won’t believe me.
We continued on the hidden path and came out onto the beach again.
Once on the beach, we came upon someone’s idea of a beach fort. They must have spent some time on this… it even had a “garden” in the front “yard”.
After our morning’s exploits, we finished packing up and then drove the Coach to the park entrance, Stilla followed in the Silverado. We connected the truck up to the Coach once we were at a wide, straight section in the road. We successfully navigated under all the low-hanging branches and came through unscathed again.
We headed South on Hwy 101 again after exiting the park. Then we crossed over the Columbia River into Oregon via the Astoria-Megler Bridge that I posted about yesterday. After going through Astoria we started looking on-line for RV Parks. We didn’t have cell service for the last two days at Cape Disappointment on either the iPhones with AT&T or the MiFi Jetpack with Verizon so I hadn’t done any prior planning. I quickly determined that Tillamook had an Elks Lodge so I called their number to ask if they had RV parking and it turns out that they have their own RV park just South of town that is separate from their downtown Lodge. Wow! Who knew? So I called ahead to make sure they had room. Dixie, the camp-hostess said, “Come on in!”
Our first rest stop was above Smugglers Cove after the town of Cannon Beach. We enjoyed the views and took a couple pictures.
And here’s the obligatory “selfie”.
Here’s a few pictures of our second and final rest stop for the day. Nice views, eh? I think it was overlooking Devils Cauldron, also not far South of Cannon Beach.
Here’s the entrance to the Elks Park, located ~5 miles South of Tillamook. Total travel distance for the day was just under 90 miles.
View of the rigs in the Elks RV Park.
As soon as we pulled in, we met the Camp Hostess, Dixie. She rolled up in her golf cart to greet us. She told us to pick a spot and stop by once we got settled to pay the $20 per day donation. However, before I parked the Coach for the next couple days, I wanted to get fuel – I was on 1/4 tank. It’s always best to keep the tank as full as possible at all times to prevent moisture from condensation building up in the tank and possibly even causing algae to grow. This can wreak havoc on your fuel system and especially filters. I had been on the look out for a decent fuel station the entire trip today that would accommodate the Coach while I was still towing the truck, but only saw one place back in Tillamook. But, naturally I was already past it before I realized it would have worked for us. I mentioned my need to get fuel to Dixie, and she recommended a place just back up the road that I must have missed. So we disconnected the truck and parked it in the spot we wanted and headed back out to fuel up. We found the country store / gas station alright and topped off. Diesel was $3.99 a gallon! Here in Oregon, a gas station attendant has to pump your fuel by state law. The attendant said this was the first time he pumped so much into one vehicle.
After returning to the RV Park and setting up. We turned on the AC(s) so we could leave little Coach in the Coach in order to go into town and partake of the Elks Lodge Friday dinner. One thing about Elks lodges across the country is that they all seem to offer a good meal every Friday for a good price and we heard from Dixie, that tonight’s specialty was a fish platter. This park has full hook-ups with 50amp service, so we could leave both air conditioners on… and it was so hot, we needed it. We also took the bicycles off the Silverado so we wouldn’t have any trouble in town finding a parking spot to fit into. And also, as I think I’ve mentioned before, the bike rack sticks out pretty far with the tailgate down and I don’t want to get a ticket from the local police.
BTW – We chose the RV site next to Orman and Susie Claxton who we know from the Alpine SoCal Association and Redmond FMCA Rally we recently attended. It’s a small RV world out here 🙂
Here’s a couple pics of the downtown Tillamook Elks Lodge #1437. The food was great! But I didn’t like the slot machines in the bar area we frequented before dinner… they didn’t give me any money! 🙂
For tomorrow (Saturday) we already got a lot of tips on things to do and see in the area: Munson Creek Falls; Tillamook Cheese Factory tour; Air Museum; 3 Capes; Octopus Tree; Cape Meares and Lighthouse… so stay tuned for our next adventure…
Our first morning (Thursday, 11 Sept) at Cape Disappointment State Park promised to be yet another warm, sunny, and pleasant day.
Hopefully, we were all able to take a moment to remember the victims from the cowardly terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
We took a leisurely morning stroll on the beach at our new campsite. Here is the path to the beach – the Urban Escape Vehicle is behind the clearing you can see at the end of the path.
View towards the beach crossing the dunes.
Low tide.
Stilla with morning coffee in hand.
Stilla poses on the beach 😉
We jumped in the Silverado a little before noon with the intent to do some more exploring today. And exploring we did! We started out by visiting the Waikiki Beach area of the park and the long jetty which protects the Northern end of the Columbia River outlet. The beach was very similar to the one by our site except it seemed to be littered with a lot more giant drift-wood logs. It was the “day-use” beach for the park and had a giant parking lot for visitors. We just viewed it from the road, having just been on our beach earlier in the morning. This super-long jetty was built in the early 1900’s and is called the North Jetty. You can read more about Cape Disappointment by clicking this Wikipedia link… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Disappointment_State_Park
We gave up trying to walk all the way to the end of the jetty. It got way too rocky towards the end and we had to carry Coach over the larger rocks.
There were many people fishing from the rocks on the jetty. This must be a popular spot, they were lined up all along the shore. While there, we watched at least two people haul in what looked like large salmon. Man, I wished I could go get my little trout fishing pole that I still have bungee-corded to the truck cargo rack 🙂
This view from the jetty shows “our” beach near the campground. The North Head Lighthouse that we visited yesterday is on the cliffs overlooking the ocean to the left.
Large waves broke on the rocks next to us. It can get pretty loud.
Our next stop at the top of the hill from the jetty was Fort Canby and the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center which are combined at one location.
Fort Canby was established in 1852, the state park came about in the 1950’s. We toured inside the bunker type buildings (it was free) which housed a display of the stored ammunition for the giant guns that once were emplaced here.
Amazing what the salty sea air can do to metal over time. This giant metal door, or what’s left of it, is on one side of the bunker entranceways. I thought it made for a good picture.
This is where one of the guns used to be emplaced. They were originally rigged on pulley and counterweight systems so they could peek out over the ridge and duck back down again for protection.
This is the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse. It is 1.2 miles from the parking lot of Fort Canby and the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center and lookout. We weren’t up for another hike so soon after walking the beach and the jetty, so we settled on just taking this picture from the neighboring lookout.
Here’s that long jetty we walked earlier as seen from above.
The Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center had an entrance fee of $5 and no dogs allowed. So, Stilla hung around outside with Coach while I breezed through and took lots of pictures… but don’t worry, I only posted a few here 😉
Inside the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, Cape Disappointment State Park, WAInside the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, Cape Disappointment State Park, WAInside the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, Cape Disappointment State Park, WAInside the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, Cape Disappointment State Park, WA
This is the old North Head Lighthouse light. These are actually stacked glass prisms that bend light into a concentrated beam so it could be seen for 20 miles offshore. It was invented by a French guy named Fresnel and it was in service from 1856 to 1898. These type of lenses were used in more than 250 American lighthouses back in the day.
Inside the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, Cape Disappointment State Park, WAInside the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, Cape Disappointment State Park, WAInside the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, Cape Disappointment State Park, WAInside the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, Cape Disappointment State Park, WA
After finishing up at the Interpretive Center, we jumped back in the SIlverado and headed back into Long Beach.
We had seen some advertisements for a Cranberry Farm / Museum tour and thought we could maybe pick some cranberries. It wasn’t all that great… unless you really like cranberries. And who knew that cranberries grew real low to the ground in a muddy bog? Needless to say, we didn’t do any picking, but we did buy some Cranberry Wine and Cranberry Jam for my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
We ended up eating a late lunch at the same place as the day before. Mainly because it was convenient and dog-friendly.
We then stopped at the World Kite Museum. Why you ask? Well, it’s just what us retired folks do 😉 It turned out to be pretty lame… it’s hard for me to get excited about kites. Maybe we should have spent more time there and took them up on their free kite building session. Anyway, I took lots of pictures again, but won’t post them here. I did learn that kites played a large part during WWII for training the troops on aircraft identification.
We then drove around on the beach because we could. Here’s a couple pics:
Here’s a couple complementary pics of a horse we saw on Long Beach while we were driving around trying not to get stuck. I put these in the blog for Cheryl Mikel, because she’s nuts about horses…
Since we still had lots of nice sunny day left, we decided to head on into Astoria again. It was only about 30 minutes away from Long Beach. We visited Astoria back on the 24th of August when we were first on our way up North. We did a couple day-trips while staying at the Elks Lodge in Longview-Kelso. That’s the same place we were at when we visited Mt St Helens. This was all before I started this blog and haven’t found the time yet to go back and post anything on those trips… maybe soon. Anyway, we didn’t have the chance when we were there earlier to go over the giant bridge and we also missed a couple sights there in Astoria, so off we went.
The bridge is called the Astoria-Megler Bridge. According to my friend Wikipedia, It is a steel cantilever through truss bridge that spans the Columbia River between Astoria, Oregon and Point Ellice near Megler, Washington. It is 4.1 miles long and was the last completed segment of U.S. Route 101 between Olympia, Washington and Los Angeles, California. It is the longest continuous truss bridge in North America.
Once across the bride, we went to the Oregon Film Museum to see more about movies that were filmed in the area, such as; “The Goonies” and “Kindergarten Cop”. Unfortunately, we got there at 5 PM just as they were closing.
They did have a replica of the SUV from “The Goonies” parked out front. This is the car that the bad folks “The Fratellis” ran away from the cops in… complete with bullet holes.
We then did an internet search on our iPhones and found the location of “The Goonies” house. We didn’t get a good picture because it’s a private residence and there are signs posted all around about not stopping… so we did a U-turn on the dead-end street as Stilla tried to get a picture. Funny what people make a destination of just because of a movie… oh well, I guess we did too.
Then we did a drive-by of the “Kindergarten Cop” school that Arnold Schwarzenegger had a scene in front of.
Finally, we stopped in the Maritime Museum parking lot to let Coach do his business. We visited this museum the last time we were here, but this time they had a paddlewheel boat anchored. So, I had to get a picture.
The Astoria trolley rolled by just as I was taking pictures.
We then headed back over the Astoria-Megler bridge and this time we stopped at Middle Village which Lewis and Clark named Station Camp. It’s just a small turn-out on the highway after you get off the bridge. For more information you can link to this website here: http://www.nps.gov/lewi/planyourvisit/stationcamp.htm
Interesting place, but it was starting to get late so I didn’t take the time to do the complete tour of the Chinook Village. I only remember reading the the Lewis & Clark expedition arrived at this place in November 1805, calling it the end of their voyage by water, and spent 10 days or so here while searching out a better place to “Winter Quarter” which ended up being on the other side of the Columbia River.
There was one more state park that we had bypassed earlier, so we took the time to do a quick drive-thru at the Fort Columbia State Park since it was on our route back to Cape Disappointment. We also still had our “Discovery Pass” we purchased as part of our campsite, so we figured we might as well make use of it. This old fort has renovated the old officer’s quarters and turned them into vacation rentals. Sorry, no additional pics… I know you were expecting them right? If you really want more information, here’s a link: http://www.parks.wa.gov/506/Fort-Columbia
We closed out the evening with a nice campfire and the Cranberry Wine we bought at the farm earlier. Sorry, no pictures again. At least, we were finally able to use some of the firewood we’ve been carrying around in the back of the pickup since Lake Tahoe. The firewood was courtesy of cousin’s Phil and Beth, thanks guys! There was a lot of wood left over after our week long stay with their group at Tahoe back in July.
OK, that wraps up this post… stay tuned for our Moving Day to Tillamook, OR post. I’m almost caught up now 🙂
Wednesday morning, (10 Sept), we jumped into the Silverado to check out some more of the local attractions. One place I had in mind to check out was Cape Disappointment State Park which encompasses the whole southern tip of the Long Beach peninsula. As with most state parks, it is often difficult to get information on-line to determine if our big rig will fit. So, with that in mind we headed South to the state park.
By the way, in my post for Tuesday, I forgot to mention that before we called it an evening, we took the Silverado all the way up to the North end of the peninsula along the Western-most road and came back down the Eastern-most road… just to see what was there. Which wasn’t much, probably why I forgot to mention it. Just more pricey RV parks (that weren’t on the beach) and lots of older run-down houses and trailer parks.
Before the entrance to the state park, there were a couple attractions along the narrow windy road. The first was Beards Hollow and the second was the North Head Lighthouse.
Here’s a couple of those informational placards that tell a better story than I ever could:
We posed for a selfie:
The Lighthouse informational placard shows the trails with a satellite view:
The inside of the lighthouse was closed for tours so we just wandered around and enjoyed the views.
Here’s one of the fantastic views from the lighthouse.
I read somewhere that Cape Disappointment gets about 106 days of fog per year on average – making it one of the foggiest places in the US. Fortunately for us, we had mostly-clear beautiful skies.
While we were there, the Coast Guard put on a show for us. It appeared that they were practicing cliffside recovery. They lowered a guy down from the helicopter to the cliffside a couple times and then it appeared to me, that the pilot messed with him by seeing how close they could get him to the waves below. I took some interesting video of that.
These next pics are a couple neat views of the lighthouse and the pathway leading up to the lighthouse keepers residence.
Another informational placard that describes what the life of a Lighthouse Keeper is like.
After those first couple stops, we finally arrived at the State Park.
I checked in at the office which was actually a guard shack in the middle of the road to ask if we could take a tour of the park to see if we would fit. Since we had already purchased a $10 Discovery Pass for the day when we stopped at the Lighthouse parking lot, they let us through. We were pleasantly surprised at the number of RV spots they had.. and more importantly, some where actually unoccupied. So we went back to the office/guard shack to get more detail on pricing and availability on a couple sites we made a note of. Of course, the couple spots we asked about were either reserved or for “admin use” whatever that is. The nice lady gave us some possibilities and marked them on our map, so we went back to check them out. We decided on site 162 at a cost of $27 per night which includes the $10 Discovery Pass that unfortunately we had already wasted $10 on. Oh well – this place was really nice and the majority of the sites near the beach were set up in wagon wheel type circles that gave everyone nice space and access to the beach. We booked two nights and high-tailed it back to the Sandcastle RV Park to get the Coach before it got any later… it was already noon.
Here’s our awesome new spot:
I had to be careful with the low hanging branches, but the Urban Escape Vehicle slipped in unscathed.
Once we got settled in, we hit the beach right away. It was just a short walk across from our site and over the grass and tree covered dune. Here’s a view of our beach with the lighthouse we visited earlier on the cliff above.
Stilla spent the afternoon combing the beach for shells.
The beach was dog-friendly. We were able to let Coach off the leash… and he made the most of it. Good thing he always seems to listen and returns when called.
Proof that Stilla was here 🙂 She took a footprint “selfie” with her iPhone.
We set up our chairs to enjoy the sunset. Coach stayed in the shade when he wasn’t chasing sea gulls. Our RV site is just behind the grass-covered, drift-log-littered dune.
We sat and watched the sunset before going back to the coach to run the generator so we could charge the batteries for the night. Did I mention that we don’t have hook-ups? Also, no internet or satellite. Life is good!
