Beachside State Camground 
Woohoo.. We're at Beachside State Park Campground, Near Waldport OR now.. Without Super Internet, But it fulfills all of our other requirements for perfection:
Near the Beach (2 city block walk to the water)
Surfable (Nice sandy beach)
Hot Showers (Really really nice after getting all sandy/salty in the cold surf)
Not too pricey (Only $17 for camping, or $21 for elec and water!)

Last night we went on up a great little paved national forest road, found several boondock campsites. But, We wont be using them ;)

We are set to be happy-camping until it gets chillyy :) Was 43 degrees when we woke up. . .. oh boy ;)

-Joe

[ add comment ]
We're Naughty... 
So, Joe decided, looking at Google Earth, that there really wasn't going to be much for beaches anymore. At least not for a looong time. So, we went back north. Yes, we back-tracked about 100 miles. So we're now south of Waldport by maybe 5-10 miles. We're at a national forest campground right now parked basically right next to the beach! We have a view of the beach! So nice. We'll be moving to a state campground in a day or two where there will be showers. So, even though we went back north, we'll get to surf for a couple weeks, then we'll head for southern OR and towards California's redwoods.

Here are some random pics.
-Miranda


A lot of the trees have moss covered branches. Fuzzy trees!

A not so great photo of the sand dunes. We were driving around on this dune and 4 others.

A picture of me in the dune buggy on the beach. We'll get a video or two up hopefully soon...

[ 1 comment ] ( 6 views )
Dune Buggers! 
Miranda and I rented a 2 seat Dune Buggy to go play in the Oregon Dunes Area. It was a good time :) The dunes go up to 100+ feet above the sands, and you can cruise all around. Also had trails to go to the ocean shore and cruise along. it was a good time. Definately worth the money to do once, but NEVER again :) Too expensive ($195 for 2 hours!!) Check it out on GOOGLE EARTH: (43.5688°,-124.209°)

Miranda was an excellent driver, And i didn't roll it, so it was all good.
we looked for a place to stay in the Dune Park, and found a campground right on the coast!! but when we looked at the water, it was HuGELY algea bloom.. (really gross) so, we werent gonna surf there. instead, headed for town. We're currently staying at an overpriced RV campground in Coos Bay :)
They said they had wifi, but, no workie.
The showers better work though, have 2 pounds of sand to remove ;)
-Joe

PS Here are some relatively old pics. Will try to get dune buggy pics/video up in the near future


Our little bench and fire pit that Joe made at our boondocking spot.

Our little area in national forest where we stayed over Labor Day

Went on a walk near one of the Dune campgrounds. This is a nutria. Sort of like a muskrat, but it's native to South America.

[ 1 comment ] ( 4 views )
Rockaway Beach 
Well, the possible place in Manzanita basically fell through. The guy's wife is a lawyer and was all worried about renter's insurance or something. Their neighbor has a little area we could have parked in, but he hadn't called the guy back yet and he would be in town on Saturday. So, we went surfing for about an hour. The water was really cold... Colder than it was in Washington where we went surfing. Basically just feet and hands were cold, but that was enough.
We went to the next coastal town, Rockaway Beach. This place seems to be a lot of beach, vacation, rental properties. At least the ones closer to the ocean. We haven't even seen the actual town yet. We found a place to park and then walked around. We found a little house a couple blocks from beach access and it was obviously an older lady's place. There is a nice area next to her car port and a shed that we fit into with ample room. So, she's letting us park here over the weekend and we offered $15 a night, but she wouldn't take it yet. Apparently she's waiting to see if she wants to put us to work. :)
Oh, and there's a super good mexican restaurant across the highway. Yummy yummy.

-Miranda

[ add comment ]
Leaving the Park 
So we were thinking of staying at the State Park maybe through the weekend (campgrounds fill up quick this time of year). We really wanted a beach access spot so we could go surfing though. We got a spot that would have been super pretty and really nice, but we didn't have internet :( Stupid work. So, we left and kept heading south along the coast. We stopped in a few towns and even drove the RV on the beach!! That was freaky. Tide was coming in so not as much firm sand as I would have liked.... We were having problems finding someplace to stay.. so we got to Manzanita, parked and rode our bikes around town for a couple hours seeing if there was someplace we could stay. Turns out the town is basically a vacation spot... Most of the houses were probably empty (people's cabins) which makes it really hard to find a place to park if there's no one there to ask.
Joe finally talked to a guy that was working in his backyard and it turned out that he owned a vacant lot that happens to be right by a beach access trail! He wanted to check with the wife who wouldn't be home until the next day and check with the city to make sure there wouldn't be a problem with an RV sitting on his property.
So, we were trying to find someplace to stay last night and Joe saw an auto-mechanic outside working last night, so we pulled in there and Joe offered him $10 for us to park in his commercial-type gravel lot for the night. It's right near the highway, but oh well. We're heading back to that guy this afternoon to see if we get to stay on his lot for a week or two. :) Hopefully it works out!

-Miranda


Our RV on the beach!!

The highway went up a ways to get over the cape, so we got a beautiful picture of Manzanita before getting there.

[ add comment ]

Back Next