Olympic Peninsula Trip - Day One

Sunday, September 17, 2017
Depoe Bay, Oregon to Hammond, Oregon
Distance: 123 miles
Campsite: Fort Stevens State Park - Space C25 (pull-thru)
Cost per Night: $30 (plus $8 transaction fee)
Duration: 1 night
Weather: 61 and rainy

This was our first big adventure, if you don't count the maiden voyage, which you can read about here. This trip was two full weeks on the Olympic Peninsula! Other than the first and last night, we had reservations at each site for three nights. Now that we're back home, we've been talking about the great places we visited and know that we'll go back, hopefully for more than just a few days at each spot. We could easily spend a few weeks, if not longer, in a couple of those campsites.

So, to the first leg of the trip. We stopped to put air in the truck tires in Lincoln City and it took us an hour to get all the way out of town! (It usually only takes 20 minutes.) The traffic was terrible. We've learned that even in the off-season, there is a lot of traffic on 101 on Sundays, especially traffic heading north. When we got to the 101/Hwy 18 split, most of the cars headed east toward Salem, which was nice. I would have really hated to get stuck behind a long line of cars on 101.

Fort Stevens is about 10 miles west of Astoria and about halfway between home and our next stop near Lake Quinault. If we were driving the truck without the trailer, we could have easily made the entire distance of 250 miles in one day. But what's the rush? 101 is slow and full of twists and turns, not to mention beautiful scenery. Thus, the short drive up the coast up to Hammond.

We stopped in Tillamook to get gas and again in Garabaldi to eat lunch (in the trailer since it was still raining). It rained on and off the entire afternoon. We pulled into Fort Stevens just around 4:00 pm.

We reserved a pull-thru site, which had ample space for both the trailer and the truck. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of grass and the dirt area near the picnic table and fire ring was quickly becoming very muddy. 

Fort Stevens is a fairly large state campground with 174 full-hookup sites, 302 electrical sites with water, 6 tent sites, 15 yurts and 11 deluxe cabins. There are flush toilets and (free) hot showers and each site has paved parking, a picnic table and a fire ring. There's also a RV dump station near the ranger station. All in all it's a very nice campground. There are a lot of trees and most of the back-in sites looked a bit more private than our pull-thru. Now that I know how to back up the trailer, back-in sites might be more desirable. Ours one was kind of out in the open. The campground was pretty quiet, maybe 1/3 full, but I'm sure weekends are a lot busier.

We didn't do much exploring since the weather was uncooperative. I did, however, take a walk around several of the loops and spotted another Escape! The owners weren't around, so I didn't get a chance to chat with them about their trailer. Rod and I went back later but they still hadn't returned, so it was a missed opportunity to chat with another Escapee.

We had our drinks under the trees when the rain let up, but it started up again, so we ate dinner (I haven't a clue what I made!) inside. Nice and cozy!

Click on the photos for a larger view of the image.