Sunday, October 1, 2017
Hammond, OR to Depoe Bay, OR
Distance: 120 miles
Duration: 3 1/4 hours
Weather: 60 degrees and sunny
It rained through the night, but the sun was shining when we woke up. We decided to take a walk out to the beach to see the Wreck of the Peter Iredale. It was a pretty walk along the bike path and I made a mental note to bring our bikes on our next trip to this park.
Oregon grows really big banana slugs!
The remains of the shipwreck were pretty impressive and it was a beautiful morning to get some photos against the vivid blue sky. There were a lot of people out on the beach flying kites and enjoying the nice weather.
I'll take the banana slugs over a cougar encounter any day!
Really nice trail for biking or walking.
Great place to stop for lunch.
Pretty impressive retaining wall.
We headed home at 1:00 (check-out time) and made a lunch stop at the wayside on Neahkahnie Mountain. Stunning view of the ocean, which was a nice way to end a great trip!
Saturday, September 30, 2017
Brinnon, WA to Hammond, OR
Distance: 175 miles
Campground: Fort Stevens State Park
Cost per Night: $38
Site #C25
Duration: 1 night
Departure Weather: 55 degrees and sunny
We left Dosewallips a little after 11:00. As we were preparing the trailer for departure, we met a nice family at the site next to ours (they had arrived the night before) and they gave us a few recommendations for some of their favorite Oregon state parks. It would have been nice to spend more time with them, but it was time to hit the road. We walked to the recycling area, enjoying our final minutes in the campground, both of us commenting on how much we enjoyed our stay, with hopes to return in the near future. The park was much more crowded than when we first arrived, so we now know it's a popular place on the weekends (and most likely during the summer). The elk had left, too. They probably don't like crowds, either.
We had an easy drive back to Oregon. It took a little over four hours (45-60 mph on a one-lane road for most of the drive) and was leisurely enough to enjoy the gorgeous fall colors as we drove through the little towns along Hwy. 101.
We arrived at Fort Stevens and after setting up camp, heading to the grocery store for dinner supplies. Rod built a nice fire and started grilling our hamburgers on the BBQ when it started to rain. It rained the first time we stayed in Fort Stevens, so I guess this is par for the course. At least our food was finished cooking and we had a nice dry trailer to keep us warm while we ate. Unfortunately, our fire went out.
The campground was pretty full, which wasn't surprising since it was the weekend. Our pull-thru sight was easy to get into, but it lacked the privacy that the back-in sites had. The sites felt closer together after being in Dosewallips, which has a lot more space between sites. And, with the rain, ours was pretty muddy.
That's it for pictures for this day. It was too wet!
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.
