Oregon Coast & Mt. Hood: May 25-29, 2005
Journals
On Wednesday the 25th, Lisa and I headed out of Crescent City, CA north up the Oregon coast. What a ride! The road is very near the ocean for most of the drive-we drove about 215 miles north to Newport, Oregon. Stopped along the way a couple times to check out the views of this rugged coastline-lots of big rocks (some more like small islands) and rough surf. We picked out a campground, South Beach State Park, because the book said that the beach was nice, and the sites close to the ocean. When we arrived on Wednesday afternoon, it was about 95 degrees out-unusually hot according to the locals. Turns out it was about a 1/3 mile hike over to the beach, but when we crossed the final dunes, it was about a 2 mile sandy beach, nice and wide, and maybe 5 people in sight. They have a man-made jetty on one side to block the surf, and a natural land break on the other. There were still waves though-long rollers. I hit the water right away to cool down-cold, but swimable. Put the kite up for a while, and Lisa took a turn and did pretty well! The campground had electric hook-ups, so we were able to test out the AC for the first time-works well! By evening, the cool ocean breezes returned, and the temperatures were back to normal. Thursday was beautiful-80s and sunny all day. We spent the day on the beach, and had some really great fish-n-chips for lunch at the Crab Shack (Lisa's friend's recommendation). On Friday, we packed it up and headed northeast towards Mt. Hood. We were able to skirt around Portland-we'll check that out another time, plus Lisa's been before. The drive was pretty short, only about 150 miles. Very hot, near 100 degrees on the way, but we're camping up the hill near Government Camp, so the altitude and forest helped out. We reserved this site because it's Memorial Day weekend. Good thing too, as all the campgrounds are full. Saturday was a day to reload and do the laundry-found a nice high speed wireless connection right in the parking lot of the laundromat! Caught up on e-mail and banking while the clothes dried. After that, we headed up to check out the historic Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood. Skiing goes on here all year long, but they had an extremely dry winter, and it was pretty evident. Photos from past years show a lot more snow, and folks skiing in their swim suits! We have our ski gear with us, and considered climbing up the mountain part way, but the skiing didn't really look so good. Lot's of people too, some climbing all the way to the summit. Instead, we headed down and found a nice hiking trail to a small mountain lake-good way to end the day. Forgot to mention the RV fire we witnessed: right as we were driving down from Timberline Lodge, and approaching US Hwy 26, we saw a plum of smoke. We pulled off the road at a safe distance-the fire had started only a couple minutes before we arrived. Everyone was able to get out-looked like there were 4 people in there. They called 911 with a cell phone, and several other people were calling from their cars. You would not believe how fast the fire destroyed this camper. It was about a 35 foot Class A (motor home, not trailer like ours). There was never a chance that the fire department would arrive in time-5 minutes was all it took for the thing to be completely engulfed. Several explosions, probably the propane tanks. The firemen arrived, and got a lot closer than we would have dared! Once that happened, we decided to take off-drove by about 4 lanes of traffic away, and got a huge heat blast. The fire could have started in the engine, but more likely they were running with the propane on to keep the refrigerator cold. I've read several safety articles about this: between the safety recommendations and some common sense, we never run with our tanks on. I'd rather have spoiled food than an RV fire. But, I bought some of those freezer packs, and they are keeping our food cold on the driving days, even when it got near 100. On Sunday, we woke up to some rainy weather, not too bad, but I got a chance to work on these journals. It cleared up some, and we went out for a bike ride, then came back and did a couple chores around camp. Tomorrow morning we'll pack it up and head north towards Mt. Rainier in Washington.
Click any of the above photos to enlarge the image!