Nov 22

Saturday morning we headed out with the plan to head further south to warmer weather and hopefully drier. I’ll report right now that we did find both.

However………our route for the day was anything but straight and quick. California Hwy 1 – the coast road started just 7 miles south of our park so we decided to take it even though we were inland a bit. Well, after 1 ½ hours, 300 billion turns and switchbacks and 25 miles, we reached the coast. The road surface was good but roads were narrow as we wound up and down through many valleys of trees. The plan was to go down the coast through Ft. Bragg and then head east again to pickup 101 and go south again. We arrived in Ft. Bragg around 12:45 which was 46 miles from our last park after close to 3 hours of driving. Kathy had this shift, so at least she was happier with the wheel in her hand. Time was running short based on our destination for today, so we gassed up and headed east from Ft. Bragg. For those that don’t know it, this city is home to the US Military Airborne and Special Op’s and it is one of the largest installations in the world with 251 sq miles and 55, 000 military servicemen. They are good at hiding, as we didn’t see one hint of any, but at that point we just wanted to keep going. In all this, we did confirm that the California ocean is bluer than the Oregon ocean!

Thankfully the day was sunny and warmer and we finished the day winding through a 20 mile stretch of vineyards arriving in Napa Valley at a town called Calistoga around 4:30. I was actually able to even BBQ for dinner.

We’ll stay in Calistoga at the fairgrounds for 3 nights. It’s a nice spot and only 2 blocks from the bustling little main street in this town of around 5,000, so walking and biking around will be great.

I hear the weather is warming back home and melting all the snow. Enjoy the weekend!

 

 

Nov 19-21

We left Gold Beach OR Wednesday morning for a planned short driving day leaving around 10am. Today’s destination was Eureka CA about 80 mile (150 km) south along the coast. Rain and drizzle had set in again so we just kept our thoughts toward California sunshine. Hmmm.

After a stop for supplies in Brookings and lunch at Carl Jrs. in Arcata, we made it to our next stop at the Eureka fairgrounds around 2:30. We had planned to bike to downtown Eureka on Thursday to check it out, but the rain continued, so plans changed so we ended up doing Kathy’s hair. No pictures this time as it was the same beautiful result. Thursday provided lots of time for planning the next 10 days or so, which we did and it is now set.

Friday we woke to a light drizzle and around 60 deg, so our plan was to drive to downtown Eureka and check it out before leaving which we did. Another ocean port with several large fishing vessels at the harbor. Their downtown has a lot of old and interesting architecture. One notable was the Carson Mansion. http://ingomar.org/index.html

Carson was actually born in New Brunswick and moved to northern California and began a lumber business and later became the area’s biggest lumber and gold baron. Carson City Nevada was named after him during the gold rush era.

It is now owned by a private club so it’s not open to the public, but if you like opulent home design and finishings, check out the above link. It is described as one of the most photographed homes in the US and possibly the world. Across from it is the “Pink Lady” built by Carson for his son as a wedding gift. It’s for sale, but we don’t know for how much. Some pic’s below.

We left Eureka heading for Ferndale CA, which was touted as a quaint little town from the Victorian era that has stood still for almost 150 years. We wondered around it for an hour or so checking out the shops then went to the Victorian Inn for a nice lunch. It certainly was a nice town with a lot of beautiful buildings. Their other claim to fame is that this is the hometown of Guy Fieri from the Food Network TV show Diner’s, Drive-ins and Dives. He was here in May checking out some of the local eateries. We know this as we went into one and bought a nice big “sticky buns” for something sweet later in the day. It was good!

We left Ferndale and headed down the road a few miles and arrived at the the Avenue of the Giants. This is a 31 mile scenic byway that runs somewhat parallel to Hwy 101 and lays claim to the “best forest drive in the world”. It is a tour through groves and groves of Giant Sequoia and Redwoods 250’ + in height and wide enough in some cases that you can drive a car through a carved out area in the tree.  We didn’t stop for these tourist traps and were sure there wasn’t any large enough for the RV anyway. So yes, I took a few pictures of trees, but it was a drizzly day so no hiking today. Besides, a couple of days earlier a couple had toured through another scenic byway, we think the same day as us and their car was broken into and they arrived back to the sound of gun shots and found the passenger window smashed and a purse stolen. It was on the local news. So we are cautious of these areas that are remote.

When in Eureka earlier in the day I overhead a few locals talking about the weather and said that it was going to rain 2-3 inches later that day. They were correct as once arriving to our site for the night, it rained hard all night. No cable at the park and the wi-fi was poor so we watched a few episodes of Breaking Bad and turned in early.

Squawk!!

 

 

Nov 16-18

Looking at the forecast, instead of heading down the coast on Monday morning we moved that up to Wednesday, spending 5 nights at Turtle Rock-Gold Beach, OR.

Last Sunday, I had one main goal, a lazy morning then over to The Hunter Creek Tavern (across from the entrance to our park) to watch the final Nascar race of the season. It started at 3:15pm EST, so we were over there for noon and they obliged us by putting on the biggest TV they had, and we had a front row seat! Chatted with some of the locals during the race, had some nacho’s and cold ones during the race. With the race over local time at around 3:30pm, we headed back and got Jazz and headed off to the beach to watch the sunset. All this when the snow was blowing and accumulating back in our home area incl. the Buffalo area – wow! The last few days here have been around 18 C. Enough said on that.

Monday morning we washed the outside of the RV, then in the afternoon we took some lawn chairs to the beach to soak up the sun and continue researching the next few weeks travels. Tuesday was spent cleaning inside the RV including windows and tracks that really needed it. Oh yeah, 4 loads of laundry – still haven’t found that fairy!

Off to California tomorrow!

 

Nov 15-12

We are currently staying on our new perch at Turtle Rock RV Resort in Gold Beach Oregon. The park was a top rated Good Sam’s (RV travel club) for 2014 as a Top Waterfront Park. There are several awarded this distinction each year throughout North America.  As you can see from the aptly named  picture above, the park is literally a few steps from the rugged and interesting beach with all the driftwood and various stones that people beach comb for. It has around 100 sites, with full-time cottages on some of them. It’s a clean park with a friendly family running it.

Today (Saturday), we woke to a few drops on the roof, but later in the morning our lost friend, the Sun, shone brightly. It was a laid back morning after sleeping in until 9 which is unusual for us. After an early lunch, we put on our sneakers and with Jazz, headed into town which turned out to be an approx. 8 km round trip walk. Temperature was warm (around 16-17 C) and the sun shone brightly. What a luxury when we hear about the weather conditions elsewhere in North America and the cold and snow at or near home. We’ll take it!!!

As we walked into town, we went towards the visitor’s centre we stopped at on Friday and headed towards the beach to walk to town. I noticed a couple that we had seen on Tuesday as we headed towards Coos Bay and went over to talk with them. I enquired about their adventure and they said they set out in May leaving Massachusetts heading into Canada at Niagara Falls then south to Cleveland and Nashville, then north to Calgary/Banff/Jasper and over to Vancouver Is. Now they are heading down the coast and will end up in South America before heading back to their native Australia. If you hadn’t guessed yet, they are on bicycles! We saw them cycling up a hill in the rain and just commented how can people do this. Obviously, they can. It’s exhausting to think about it. We bided them safe travels and headed onto town. In Gold Beach on a Saturday, most of the stores were closed and the only excitement was the high school football game. I think most of the town was in attendance. We grabbed a coffee and headed back getting back around 4. Jazz decided to stay in the RV, as we grabbed a couple of soda’s in our knapsack and headed to the beach to watch the sunset. That was enjoyable. Once the sun set, things cooled off so back to camp for some bruschetta and a game of scrabble while the St. Louis style ribs baked in the oven. Yum, yum.

Friday was a short driving day from Coos Bay to Gold Beach. On the way we stopped in Port Orford and learned that it is a “dolly port” – As you can see in the picture below, there is no natural harbor, so the fishing boats are put in and taken out EVERY day! Quite an undertaking, but the fisherman must band together as a co-op to make this work. There are only 2 of these in the US and a total of 6 in the world. A stop for propane and another for some groceries, we arrived here around 3 after leaving around 11:15 from Coos. The rain seemed to be chasing us as we headed south but we eventually won the race arriving to warm and somewhat overcast sky’s. Our meal plans for the night went back into the fridge as we arrived at camp and noticed the Hunter Creek Tavern right across the street – coincidence? Maybe…. Anyway, their sign said Happy Hour at 4:30 and Friday night special was Rib Eye steak dinner for $13.75! Sold! What a great little spot right beside the creek serving up micro brewed beer from next door and the other US high volume suds. It’s confirmed as the place to watch the final Nascar race of the season on Sunday afternoon.

Thursday was a rain day as was the latter half of Wednesday when we stayed at the Casino in Coos Bay. Thursday morning was research day and when we found the Turtle Rock resort. We had to use the park office to call and reserve another park which was a bit awkward as the phone plan we have with T-Mobile has been useless in Oregon. Thursday afternoon we took the Casino shuttle (that will take you anywhere in town) to the Pony Village Mall and found a few bargains. (yes Linda, we’ll have to purge some clothes when we get home!) Earlier we had decided to “invest” $20 each at the casino, so we headed off to do this and in less than ½ hr we were in the outdoor hot tub $40 lighter. If they had 500 slot machines, 475 of them were penny machines. I guess so you can’t lose too much, eh. But at $2.50 a crack (if you want) you can go through a pile of money quickly. Kathy and I don’t get gambling and this was out fix for the next couple of years.

Wednesday’s weather, after arriving on Veteran’s Day (Tuesday) was pleasant enough for us to venture in to town probably around 5-6 km round trip. We checked out a coffee shop and then after a little more walking around, found a small fish house right at the docks for lunch. We had a cup of their clam chowder and their half and half special for the day – ½ fish and chips and a half order of deep fried clams or deep fried oysters. We were stuffed to walk home, but it helped to wear off some of this meal. Dinner was a lighter meal that night as the rain came down.

Sunday, fun day!!

 

November 10-12/14

We spent our last full day in Washington doing a bit more touring of the local area. We drove the RV to Cape Disappointment State Park (about a 5 minute drive from our campground) We had originally planned to bike there but due to the previous weeks rainfall, the bike path was actually washed out so we couldn’t get there that way. Just as well as the hike we ended up going on was strenuous enough and it would have been a killer to have to bike back to the campground afterwards. Cape Disappointment is one of Washington state’s most famous and popular parks. It boasts a premier campground, 3 beautiful beaches, public artworks, 2 lighthouses, an interpretive centre and miles of hiking trails. We first walked to Waikiki Beach – named in memory of a Sailor who was from Hawaii (known as The Sandwich Islands back in the days of The Lewis and Clark Expedition) who drowned on the expedition. This beach is one of the locals’ favorite spots for storm watching because the waves crash on the cape here with the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse in the background. From there we took the Discovery Trail up to the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse which was a 1.2 mile hike one way over some fairly rough hilly terrain. It was a beautiful view from there. We could see the Jetty’s that had been built to control the mouth of the mighty Columbia River because with all of the tidal action, there is a tendency to fill the mouth in making it impassable for oceangoing ships.

Once we returned to the RV we had our lunch and then headed north up the Peninsula from Seaview to check out what was there. In Ocean Park we stopped at Jack’s Country Store.  We had been told Jack’s was a must see as it was a huge store covering a full block and was supposed to contain all kinds of unique items. It was somewhat of a disappointment as it was just a hodge podge of stuff with a grocery store included. From there we drove to Oysterville which was right on Willapa Bay which is famous for its Oysters. We ended our day by stopping at the Seaview Laundromat where we caught up on our laundry and did our grocery shopping at the local IGA while the laundry was going.

Tuesday morning we packed up and headed south on Hwy 101 out of Washington and into Oregon. It was a very windy day and shortly after entering Oregon we had to cross a huge bridge in Astoria with very high wind gusts. Rob did a great job driving across the bridge and keeping the RV from blowing around too much. I was thankful that it wasn’t my turn to drive that day as it reminded me of the bridge I had driven across in rain and high winds back in Tacoma.

Once we got safely across the bridge we saw beautiful scenery as we drove through Seaside, Cannon Beach, Rockaway Beach, Tillamook, Newport , Florence, and the Oregon Dunes. Just north of Florence we stopped off at a lookout point and as I exited from the RV I smelt a familiar smell and immediately remembered being at Fisherman’s Wharf  years ago in San Francisco. Sure enough, upon looking over the cliff down to the water, there were at least 200 barking Sea Lions sunbathing below on the rocks and swimming in the rough ocean. If you have ever smelled sea lions, it is a smell you will never forget. It was fun watching them frolic in the waves and on the rocks. Also where we stopped was a great view of the Heceta Head Lighthouse which has the strongest beam of light on the Oregon coast.

Just past Florence, the Oregon Dunes begin and go for about 48 miles along the coast. The sand dunes along the Highway were huge. I said to Rob that it was a good thing we had not planned to camp in that stretch of the coast since I am not a sand lover as many of you know. Shortly after the dunes ended, we arrived at our destination – The Mill Casino Hotel and RV Park on Coos Bay in Oregon.

Wish us luck at the Casino!!