Fun in the Sun Days 1-6

We’re now on day six of our “fun in the sun” road trip which started on Feb 13. This is the first wintertime camping trip we’ve taken and so far, we’re very impressed with our ability to find sun. Most of the entire trip so far has been sunny and relatively nice weather … not what we expected or planned for.

The first night was spent at Maryhill State Park (WA) which is near the Dalles on the Columbia River. The campground itself is nestled along the Columbia river between mountains. It is a sprawling, park-like campground right on the river with lots of room….that’s the good news. The bad news is the steep downhill grade of WA 14 with truck/trailers coming down all night with the compression bakes on, with the added bonus of having railroad tracks on two sides. We rate this campground an overall 4 (out of 10).

Night two was spent at Carl G Washburne Memorial State Park which is near Florence, OR on the coast. This was a typically nice Oregon State Park that was very wooded. The bad news is that the showers were luke warm. We rated this campground an overall 7.

Going south from Washburne, we stopped in Florence to see the Old Town section, with lots of shops and cafes along a river. Deb was hoping to find a new whirligig like the one we lost in Florida a couple years ago, but the kite shop was closed. We also drove through Bandon which is a great seaside village.

Night three was spent at Harris Beach State Park, way south on the Oregon coast near Brookings near the California border. This was an excellent park and extremely popular… perhaps because it was a Saturday night and a sunny weekend, or …just because. The bathrooms here were first rate and the campground had trailed that went down to the beach. We rated this campground a 9 and would definitely plan to come here again.

After leaving Harris Beach, we stopped at the “Trees of Mystery”. Certainly this is the highlight of the first 10^th of our trip, so we talked about just going home, thinking it couldn’t get any better than the Trees of Mystery. Actually it was pretty cool. Kyle walked the 1 mile loop and we took the “sky trail” gondola up into the trees.

Night four was spent at Patrick’s Point State Park, near Klamath, CA. A nice setting right on a point overlooking the pacific, but the campground is strewn with branches and storm debris, and the bathroom and shower facilities were poor.  All in all, a pretty run down park for $35/night and poor compared with Oregon parks. We rate this campground a 6, just because of the nice views.

Going further south down US-101 “the redwoods hwy”, we took the scenic bypass through the “Avenue of the Giants”. This world-famous scenic drive is a 31-mile portion of old Highway 101, which parallels Freeway 101 with its 51,222 acres of redwood groves. It is by far the most outstanding display of these giant trees in the entire 500 mile redwood belt and is accessible to all with convenient services provided along the way.

 

 

The Avenue of the Giants is surrounded by Humboldt Redwoods State Park which has the largest remaining stand of virgin redwoods in the world.

We spent the night in the middle of this beautiful area at Burlington Camp. This is a great example of what CA ST Parks used to be and should be, even thought $35 is still too mush for a dry campground in winter. We took a nice nature trail and enjoyed the trees. I even played my new ukulele that night at the campfire.

That night we got our first taste of winter since we left. In the middle of the night it started raining and in the morning we were surrounded by ponds of water. I guess redwoods like rain…

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