Trip to the desert

After leaving the Sand Dunes it was off to the Redwood Forest at the Jedediah State Park Redwoods.  The only thing I have to say is WOW!  It isn’t that I haven’t seen big trees before, as on Vancouver Island we have some beauties.  The Redwoods are tall. 

 

   

Very tall and it was hard to get the scale right just to show how tall they were.  I think the tallest is measured at 380’ (116m).  We were so lucky going at this time of year as we pretty much had the forest to ourselves.  

   

Of course, I had to take photos of the mushrooms and other fauna on the forest floor. Huge spear ferns, mosses and ivies. We even seen a bit of poison ivy…….at a respectable distance.

   

Then it was off to find a spot to stay for a few days over Christmas.

We had a delightful Christmas.  Stayed 5 days in Crescent City, Oregon; laid around, went for walks, eat to much, drank a little too much, the usual holiday fair.

   

The Shoreline RV park we stayed in was quiet and right next to the ocean.  20’ out front was a beach with a great view of the cutest little light house you could only get to at low tide.  We never did seem to make it there.

 

A note about the RV park, great spot, very nice owners, but the bathrooms were never cleaned.  I kept looking for a broom to sweep out the sand (it is everywhere) and the WiFi was non-existent. It was hard to update or even send emails, 2 seconds on and 20 min off.  After a while we just gave up trying.

 

Then Christmas Eve we found the Seaquake Brewing Company.  What a great place, wonderful friendly staff and pretty good craft beer.  My favorite though was the onion rings, they added Franks hot sauce to the batter.  Tyler didn’t like but I thought they were yummy.  The other cool thing was that they had Crowler cans that they canned right in front of you so we ordered a couple of blond ales to go for over Christmas.

 

 

Christmas day we woke, had coffee and opened gifts.  I think the cats loved the bags and paper and even in such a small space managed to tear (Carl loves to rip paper) much into tiny pieces.  It was so funny as both of us had bought our gifts for each other long before we had even thought of taking this adventure.  I had bought Tyler the smallest camera drone which in the condo would have been lots of room to torment the kitties.  In the RV not so much.  Limited space with lots of obstacles……. To funny to watch. 

 

Santa brought me a resin kit with all the molds, dyes, sticks and ideas to make pendants with fun things in them.  I can hardly wait to find a warm outside table to mix and experiment with.

 

On December 27 from Crescent City we headed over Shasta-Trinity National Forest into Redding to visit with an old friend I had not seen in 15+ years.  It was wonderful to have Vicki as a guide and walk the trails along the Sacramento River.  Not to mention crossing the glass floored Sundial Bridge. 

 

 

 

A couple of days visiting and off again over the high Sierra’s to Carson City and a night stay at the Walmart there. 

We had supper at a Mexican Restaurant La Posada and was very looked after from Steve whose wife came from Sechelt in BC. Makes you smile.    

Catch up on grocery shopping and off to Tonopah, Nevada.So this is where we are going to hangout for a few days and explore the high desert. 

 

 

 at Walker Lake.

Met another traveler from Grandforks, BC parked right beside us with his 4 dogs.  Lots of snow geese heading south.  Having to brave the cold nights here -4c.  Luckily nothing froze.

Into the Dunes

Last night we were struck by another rainstorm but were lucky as it waited until just after we got back to the RV before starting and OMG Carl was enthralled by the raindrops running down the window. I took a quick video and I don’t know what’s funnier; Carl or mum egging him on.

Well Walmart... Off to the next stop! One thing about the Walmart parking lot is there is always something crazy going on. From random people to the police stalking the parking lot it’s been entertaining.

Our morning view

On our way down we stopped at the Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park to be able to see the dunes.

Dunes at the Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park

Stop # 10 on our Roadtrippers map was the Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park where we found the largest dunes in the western USA.

They were, well, impressive!

We hung out there and hiked up and down a few dunes for a couple of hours and it was the most work I’ve done in a long time! hahaha I was so tired afterward from pushing sand. It was great!

Mum chilling on one of the blow outs on top of a dune waiting for me to catch up.

And finally here is a photo dump of the dunes!

The Dunes gave us our third rainbow in three days!
The view down from the top of the first dune we climbed. Before mum and I parted ways. She took a lower route while I hacked bushes to climb the biggest one in sight!

Views from the top.

 

There’s mum wandering along the top of the adjacent dune.|

It was interesting to see how the wind would carve big grooves into the dunes at different intervals.
And of course the ever present ocean!

Next we headed to Coos Bay’s Walmart for the night. Just down the street we found a local pub Gooney’s Sports Bar just down the street. It was the classic the music stops and everybody looks at you when you walk in but it took mere minutes before we were at home and having a great time until the wee hour of 9pm before we wandered home and I tried to get us lost but really just took the long way around.

Our view for the night:

Next is the trek to Crescent City and the redwood forest.

Heading to Newport

After the crazy sleep at the Blue Heron French Cheese Company (we were angled just right for those winds to rock the RV at 3 am) we got up and made our way down the 101 to Newport.

Our morning view from our way out in the open after a wind and rain storm:

It was actually a very nice spot out of the way and the people at the Blue Heron French Cheese Company were very friendly and we chatted for quite a while (Not being able to escape from their station helped lol).

But after having our coffee and breakfast we carried on down the road towards Newport, OR.

Once there we settled down at Walmart for the night. Picked up some supplies... Not sure if this parking lot thing is saving us or costing us by being right next to shopping! ;-P

We wandered down towards the ocean for a walk along the shore and lo! As we came around the corner we were presented by a beautiful rainbow! It was fully clear and all the bands were perfectly clear. And the amazing thing, to me at least, was how close we were to the base of the rainbow. I’ve never seen one so close!

The beach was a standard sand beach. Lots of broken shells and a few sand dollars (Cue neat factoids here) but nothing too exciting until the wind picked up and started shifting the sands. That was pretty cool.

Sands moving:

Classic cheesy silhouette of a random couple on a beach shot.

Afterwards we headed up to the Best Western for dinner. Which I broke the mold and had a salad which was surprisingly good and way better than mums mediocre seafood platter that was just sad. So we went home and made popcorn for dessert. Much better!

I’m going to end the post here and carry on tomorrow with our next jump. It feels like it’s been very eventful and lots of things happened and I just can’t put it all on here at once with our really slooooowwwwww wifi connection. I’ve been at this for ages and it’s been a game of patience with technology today. But I (well I think mum is too) am having a blast being a total bum packing around not really concerned with where we make it other than to the next spot at the end of the day!

Till tomorrow, g’night!

One heck of a storm

Tuesday morning and we are sitting at the Blue Heron French Cheese Company in Tillamook (http://www.blueheronoregon.com) in one heck of a storm.  Our first on the adventure.  Gusting winds up to 40mph (60kmph) and pelting rain.  Furgy (the RV) is rock’in and a roll’in.  Glad we are parked and not on the road trying to drive through this.  A little mishap with the vent for the overhead stove fan.  It keeps banging and letting water in as the air pressure changes.  We will have to work something out to stop that when the gales stop.

 

View outside our main window this morning.

I enjoyed Fort Stevens State Park although expensive with an extra $8.00 charge for booking on line.  The campground was tidy and good access to the beach about .75 miles away.  I am still a little surprised that the parks charge as much as they do.  $34.00 a night for us to stay……and you would think at least they would have warm showers with hot water.  But that was my only complaint. 

 

The cats really enjoyed the stay and the main window was a kitty tv for the 2 days. 

While we were there we did our 5km a day walk.  Once along Coffenbury Lake and another to the Fort Stevens Ship wreck and sand dunes.  I was glad the campground was sheltered from the ocean elements as it was cold and windy at the beach.Tyler taking a photo at the Ship WreckLeaving the park, we headed back up to Astoria Oregon to see if we could find the house that the movie ‘The Goonies’ was filmed in.  We didn’t find the actual home but wandered and sight seen a few others.  Stopped at a glass blower shop and bought a few ounces of fused glass pieces to wire wrap at some point.  We also ran across the Astoria Museum located in this beautify old home.

 

Astoria Museum

Then down the coast hwy 101 stopping here and there to do the touristy thing.  Met a mom and 2 sons from New York doing the same thing only in the other direction so did the neighbourly thing….we took their pictures for them and they took a few for us.  Nice family.

 

Tyler and Terry looking towards Bay City

Then we found this perfect little haven in the storm at the Blue Heron French Cheese Company.  Had a late lunch (they make awesome sandwiches) shared a Rogue Pumpkin Ale and headed back to Furgy.  I did purchase a few more titbits for Christmas like chocolate and sun-dried tomato and bacon cream cheese and crackers; but don’t tell Tyler. Lol

Walmart our new best friend...

   

Whew it’s been a great start! We stayed at the North Whidbey RV Park right across from Deception State park. As mum said last post it was an easy first stop. Heh, well except for the Fighter jets and bomber that spent the whole day buzzing around the park at near mach one. So loud! but they called it quits for dinner so we had two quiet nights.

The first day through we went for a walk along Cranberry Lake to the ocean. I tried to get a shot of the jets flying overhead but it’s really hard to hold your ears and take a picture at the same time! Needless to say I couldn’t get a good shot through the trees. 

The ocean side was beautiful with a few sand dunes and a gnarly old tree that has seen a lot of attention over the years!

But before long we were back on the road again! We took the 20 south and across a ferry to Port Townsend. Our next stop was Dungeness County Park where we took a break from driving to hike through the woods to the ocean beach below.

From there we continued on until the Walmart in Port Angeles East. Here we stayed the night and took the bus into Port Angeles where we hung out at the Coyote bbq Pub. Which was a blast! Until it was time to head back to the RV. The bus ride was pretty quick and everyone was extremely helpful making sure we didn’t miss our stop!

The next morning we woke up and hopped into the drivers seats and made our way though the Olympic National Park. We were delayed by a road crew that was cleaning up a slide that took out part of the road. It was a short 30 min before we were moving again. Mind you it took longer to get down to Aberdeen than I thought it would. The driving song of the day had to go to: No Roots by Alice Merton

Along the way we parked on the side of the road just before leaving the park behind us. Street view And a view from the lake. ha street view looks like it was taken on the same day!

Managed to catch a rainbow just barely shining directly on a little island just off shore before the rain caught up with us and we carried on:

Once in Aberdeen we headed to the Walmart to grab a few more supplies. This Walmart was crazy busy compared to the one in Port Angeles East but just as friendly. I’m amazed at the contrast from Vancouver and so far most everyone will look back and return your smile or polite niceties for almost colliding with them in the isles. I am really impressed with Walmart actually. We’ve gotten everything from memory-foam mattress covers to groceries and even a case of beer all from the same place and everyone is courteous of each other. That and the free overnight parking is awesome! That night was a bit more eventful as just as we called it a night 3 sheriff squad cars pulled up in front of our RVs (We parked next to another RV that was already there) and proceeded to chase after someone in a truck. We decided to head out earlier than usual the next morning. Mostly because of the busy area and wanted to get a head start on the weekend traffic. ;-)

After about 4 days on propane for our furnace and light cooking we thought we should stop and refill just to make sure we weren’t getting low as the gauge is totally messed and just points down like a wet noodle. At some point we’ll have to stop and get it fixed but not today. Our first stop was at the Mobil gas station across from Walmart which had a huge propane tank outside but the old lady at the register wouldn’t help us so we headed out of town and found Ryann at chimneytechniques who was happy to help us out. And, which it turns out, we had only used about 4 Gallons (about 14 L) out of our 18 Gallon tank! So while mostly just taking up time she filled up our tank and gave us one of those magnetic fuel readers that you can stick on the outside that gives you a fuel level estimate. We were looking for a BBQ as the one we had wouldn’t fit so we had to give it away but all she had was a Big Green Egg. Which as we drove away were trying to figure out how we could get it here! They look awesome!

Finally we headed into Astoria, home of the Goonies! (Great adventure movie) Goodbye Washington, Hello Oregon!

We are currently parked in the Fort Stevens State Park. I spent an extra $8 to pay online which once we got here realized it was a total waste as the place is mostly empty. But now here we are for the next few days to relax and enjoy the area before deciding our next stop!

Whoa this was a long one today and I haven’t gotten all our pictures from along the way or of the view from our window this morning but my cellular connection is just barely one bar and bout to give up on me. It will have to wait for a better signal... have a great weekend!