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

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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.

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Formorally Fort Canby State Park 
We wanted to stay in Long Beach for a bit and try surfing there, but we couldn't find anyplace to stay. There was a sort of RV park that was completely empty. Joe talked to the owners and said they were really weird and creepy and said it would cost $33 for us to stay there... They even have a website.. http://www.souwesterlodge.com/
After Joe's encounter with them and generally not having a lot of luck finding someplace, we decided to leave and went south to the state park. We were afraid we wouldn't have internet, but we do. :) So we're going to stay here two nights. We might move to one of the beach access sites tomorrow night. They'll be more expensive but we'll be close enough to the beach to go surfing.
Oh and we rode our bike on the beach. That was super fun. :)

-Miranda


A weird ship we saw... If anyone knows what it is, or what it carries, let us know. :) Sorry the photo is terrible. It was getting dark and it was really windy, so the tripod was shaking.

An old spot for a turret, built during the war apparently. There was a creepy tunnel-type building with some creepy little dark rooms too. No lights or windows in the building either. No signs around. Someone else told us what it was.

A beautiful view from a short hike we took.

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Grayland Beach State Park 
We drove through Seattle today and stopped at a surf shop where we bough a board for me and a bag for the board as well as a sock for Joe's board (they didn't have another 9' bag). So that will help protect the boards when they're on the RV's roof.
We are parked at a campground in Grayland Beach State Park and it's pretty much full... seems nuts for a Monday. Hopefully it isn't like this all the way down the shore but I suppose that is possible this time of year.
We are pretty close to the beach, so our plan is to try some surfing this evening. :) We'll see how it goes.

-Miranda

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Bellingham 
Well, we left Leader Lake and headed for a friend of Joe's place in Mazama. That is a neat area. There are mile high mountains on wither side and the tiny town is in a valley between them. Unfortunately, Rob, Joe's friend, was gone until Tuesday. We probably would have stayed, but there was no internet there (go figure) and most of the activities to do there are hiking. My ankle is still giving me problems so we decided maybe on our way back we'll head through there. Our original plan was to stay probably in the National Forest near a state park off of Winthrop. There's a lake there and Joe's really wanting to swim. But there was apparently a Blue's Festival going on so wwaaayy too many people. :)
Joe's cousin, Emma, and her mom are going on a 5 week road trip into (of all places) Montana and they're leaving Monday. So we decided to get here before they leave so we could see Emma and spend some time with them. We just stayed on a little road in National Forest off of the highway on Sat night and we were parked in front of Julie and Emma's house last night.

-Miranda


The Cascades.

A gorgeous, small water fall right off the highway. There was even a perfect area to pull of across from it.

Emma and her dog Buddy when she and I went to a nearby park.

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