Caught in a Downpour

We are now at the Russian River Thousand Trails Park for 4 days. Bob and Julie left Klamath the day before we did and headed over to Redding to visit some friends. We had decided to continue down highway 101. We drove the approximately 250 miles here on Sunday. It is a bit more than we have been going in a day lately. After about the first third of the drive it was inland from the coast. It is a slow road with a lot of hills and turns, but still faster than much of the drive down the Oregon coast.

The visit here has been kind of a bust due to the weather. It has been raining most of the time we have been here as a major front came through. It was not a thunderstorm or even high winds, just relentless rain. It is perhaps ironic that it is in sunny California that we are having the worst weather we have seen this year. That has kept us from doing much sight seeing. This is California wine country. We have driven by a lot of the vineyards. We talked of doing some wine tasting but the weather kept us in. We did go to the Sho Ka Wah Casino for their advertised $4.95 Prime Rib dinner. It turned out to be a very good meal. They also gave us each $10 gambling credits for signing up for their cards. We played the slot machines for a while and we came away with enough to pay for our meal plus about $15. So it was a good night.

The park here is wooded, and hilly with some tight turns. The sites are long but often close together. Although these parks are billed as resorts there is no pool or organized activities. The park is probably less than a third full. It appears to be a park used in summer with the river as a major attraction. The staff here is the friendliest that we have run across for a while.

Visiting with Giants

We had driven through part of the Redwoods National Park while coming into Klamath but we wanted to see more. So we went with Bob and Julie to spend some time in the park.

The trees are certainly impressive. It is amazing that they are as large and old as they are. We didn't see any of the drive through trees, but some were very wide. And tall as well. It is impressive that they are hundreds or in some cases even thousands of years old.

Walking through the redwoods we were struck by the quiet stillness of the forest.

Klamath River

We drove from Port Orford today to Klamath, California. It was an easy drive. We stopped for fuel before we left Port Orford as we had seen a gas station with a very large lot and easy approach. We didn't really need to fill up yet but we knew that we would be staying on 101 and that easy in fuel spots might be hard to find. We also thought the price would be better in Oregon than California.

The drive down the coast highway continued to be very scenic. There were many great views of the ocean and coastline. The Oregon coast from end to end is impressive and more beautiful than any other we have seen. We are also impressed that Oregonians have resisted high rises and commercialization of the coast and kept it so much of it assessable to the public.

We have driven into California several times before, but it always seems odd to be stopped at the border for the checks for fruit. It feels like you are entering another country. The inspector was quite friendly and when we informed him that we were carrying bananas and lemons asked to see the lemons. He looked carefully at each of the lemons and ruled that they were fit to enter California.

We had reservations and directions to the Klamath River RV Park. Just getting into the park was nerve racking. We saw a sign with an arrow showing almost a U-turn to get in. Uh-Oh. Well, we saw the enterance was wide, but turns of much more than 90 degrees are hard with our bus and car combination and this was more like 140 degrees and down hill with a sharp dropoff on the left hand side of the enterrence road. With our wide turn we were at the left side of the road looking over the steep hill. There were logs as a barrier it looked like we were going to be scraping them, so Barbara got out to watch while Dennis inched the bus forward. It turned out that we cleared the log by several inches but it sure looked close from inside.

The park itself has a nice view of the Klamath River. There is a boat dock and it is apparently a good fishing area as several boats were going out. The sites a deep but narrow, open for satelite but with woods around the area. We were a bit put out by the $3 extra fee for electricity added on to the RPI fee that usually covers electricity. It was more irritating when we found that the voltage was prone to dropping under heavy use so it was necessary to manage power use to prevent it from dropping too low.

Port Orford, Oregon

We left Newport this morning and headed south on the coast highway, highway 101. It was a scenic drive. We are heading to the area of the Redwoods National Park in northern California, but we decided to take 2 days as we expected the road to be quite slow. This section wasn't as bad as we expected and we were in Port Orford by 1 p.m. The highlight of the drive down was when we pulled into a scenic overlook. We were pleasantly surprised to hear and see a large group of Sea Lions below us. It turns out that we were at a point just below the Sea Lion Caves. We got to see the Sea Lions without stopping and paying.



We stopped at a Passport America park in Port Orford, Oregon. It is a small park with a handful of sites for overnighters. Most of the park contained aged RVs that appeared to have not been moved for years and probably are lived in full time. Passport America is an organization that provides members sites for half price. This campground was one that appeared to have no one in for full price. Anyone paying twice what we did for an overnight stay would probably be disappointed as everything looked run down and needing attention. We got full hook ups in sites that were just large enough. The cable tv worked well but we could not get a signal on the wifi even when we brought a computer to the office.

Port Orford like so much of the Oregon coast is a very scenic area. We went out to see the sunset at Paradise Point north of town. It is a great view, with "shark's tooth" rocks that are reported to be 5 miles out but appear much closer. We also stopped at the beach north of town for another great view. There were a lot of very tame deer in town near the park.

What a great sunset, just loved it, but was a little windy.


Sharktooth rocks

Whaler's Rest

We are spending a week at the Whaler's Rest Leisrure Time Park just south of Newport, Oregon. It was an easy drive here from Seaside. Easy but not quick. The drive of approximately 125 miles took around 3 hours down highway 101 which is a slow winding hilly road. It does have a lot of nice views making it worth while. We stopped at a Les Schwab tire dealer on the way to have one of our tires looked at. We had a gash in one of the drive axle tires. It looked like a sharp cut but not very deep. We don't know how it happened but our best guess is that it was a sharp rock in one of the campgrounds. The tire person looked at it and said that it was not quite to the belt so it would not be a problem. The large semi truck size tires that we use have thick side walls so I guess that we were lucky this time.

The park we are in is wooded and fairly hilly. With the help of the ranger we were able to find one of the few available sites where we could get satellite reception through the trees. The site is closer to neighbors than we like but it works. The area is scenic. The park is across the highway from the ocean. There is a state park there. It is an easy walk to go over and go to the beach. We can hear the surf easily from our site.

So far the weather has been cooperative. The mornings are cool but warm quickly with the sunshine which has so been plentiful. Our friends Bob and Julie came in the day after we did. We have been playing pickleball most mornings. There are several other pickelball players.

Barb and Julie tried their luck at crabbing. Turns out they didn't have too much luck but it is about having a good time, isn't it? Ok while Julie and Barb got a good lesson about crabbing on Friday, they went out again on Sat morning with even more dismal luck than on Friday.

Picture of our lesson on how to tell a male from a female, really simple, the male has a long skinny tower and of course the female has a very large round bottom.
Julie holding the only keeper that was caught by our group of ten, Barb and Julie caught 2 good size female, but just our luck you cannot keep the females.


Tuesday morning while Barb was painting the cabinet doors, the couple next door gave her six of the 12 crabs they caught that morning, they even cooked and cleaned them for us. Nothing like great campers. Oh, by the way they have crabbed a lot and they cheated using a boat. Just jealous that we didnt have a boat.


wow just look at this, we plan a great dinner.

Forts and aTower and Food

We had a busy day. We played pickleball in the morning and went sightseeing in the afternoon. Well, we started the sightseeing trip with a stop at the Goose Hollow Restaurant for a hearty lunch. Dennis and Bob both ordered what was billed as "the best Reuben on the planet" and they agreed that it was a very good Reuben indeed.

We headed on to Lewis and Clark National Park and spent some time going through the museum and replica of Fort Clatsop, which was where Lewis and Clark spent their winter on the west coast.
Lewis and Clark with Seamon


one of the hollowed out boats



We then visited the Astoria Tower which is on a hill and provides great views. Actually the view is great from the hill and even better from the tower. It overlooks the city and the mouth of the Columbia and the long bridge between Washington and Oregon as well as the Cascade Mountains. Even on a bit of a hazy day we were able to see Mt. Rainer and just make out the top of Mt. St. Helen's.This is one georgous tower


what a view from the top


Before leaving Astoria we just had to stop for cones at the great custard ice cream cone stand across from the Columbia Maritime Museum. We each managed to eat one of the delicious filling cones, even after the large lunch we had earlier.

Our last stop was at Fort Stevens State Park. We went to the beach and viewed the Peter Iredale Shipwreck. The rusty remains are what is left after 103 years.

Bob wanted to share this moment one ole wreck with another ole wreck.

A Cheesy Day

We took an afternoon drive to Tillamook which is about 50 miles south of Seaside. Bob and Julie rode with us. It is slow but pleasant trip down highway 101. There are numerous vista Ocean views along the route. The tourist attraction in Tillamook is the famous cheese factory. We went through and got our free cheese samples then went through the self guided tour of the facility, learning a bit about the local operation and cheese making in general. We bought some of the cheese in the store. This was followed by what was the highlight of the trip for most of us at the ice cream shop. The fare was delicious and plentiful. Oddly, Bob declined as a dietary measure. The rest of us spoiled our appetite for dinner, so perhaps it wasn't so bad for our diets either.

Julie makes a good farmer, but don't about
Bob.


Dennis didn't want to be a cow, so here I am.


good shot of the factory.