We've mostly just been working and trying to get stuff caught up. We're starting to run low on water, so we may head down into Happy Camp tomorrow or Monday to fill up and shower. What we do after that is up in the air though.
Oh, I updated the current location, but I got lazy.
I didn't put many points along the coast. Sorry. -Miranda
[ 1 comment ] ( 6 views )
We left Brookings and headed towards California and the redwoods. Our plan ended up being, go through the redwoods and take highway 96 back over to I5 to get back up to Ashland, OR where we're meeting up with Joe's cousin. We headed towards Jedidiah State Park and ended up seeing a county park in the redwoods where camping was $10! It had internet too. We got some work done and enjoyed the redwoods around us. The kitties even went out for a walk on their harnesses. We have 2 so we take two different trips with them. They've been doing really well on them.
We left the next morning and headed for the campground in Jedidiah. The camping cost $35!!!! We did not remember it costing that much before. We found out from a different campground ranger later, that up until about two years ago, it was $20.
Anyway, we headed towards the Stout Grove. We went to that same grove 3 years ago from a different, longer direction. That time we hitchhiked up to it. This time we parked at one trailhead where a ranger happened to pass us in a car and mentioned that he didn't think the RV would fit down the road... We took the bikes down to the grove since we figured it couldn't be far. Joe wanted to take a different hike after the Stout Grove hike. Unfortunately, the bridge was out. We took our shoes off and walked across the stream. The hike was absolutely gorgeous. It was about 3 miles long and ended at the road. From there we walked part way down the road back to the parking lot where our bikes were. We got a ride from a pickup for about half the ride.
After the bike ride, we decided the RV could fit through without a problem. We drove through without incident and made it to Crescent City. From there, we headed to Del Norte State Park. It was pricey, but we stayed in the campground there and went for a nice, short, but steep hike. The next day we kept going through the redwood parks and got to our Bald Hills Rd we were going to take to 96. It was steep! We stopped for a short, mile walk around Lady Bird Johnson Grove. After that we worked our way up the hill more until we got to the road that goes down to the Tall Trees Grove. That grove contains the tallest tree in the world. Unfortunately, you need a permit to drive down the 6.5 mile road. It was foggy and a bit chilly, but we decided to bike down it, then do the 3.6 mile hike (800ft elevation change), then bike back up. The hike was gorgeous. The bike turned into 13 mile bike ride 1300 feet of up and down in elevation. We were pretty tired after that.
We continued up the road where the road quality disintegrated! The fog also got so bad we could barely see a thing. There was a trail head, so we parked there for the night. The next morning, we headed out right away. We eventually came out above the clouds to a gorgeous day. Our hope was to find a place in the national forest between 101 and I5. It was looking pretty bleak for a while (no internet at all) but once we got to Happy Camp, CA we finally got internet!!! We went up into the forest nearby and have found an awesome spot. Hopefully we'll stay here for a few days.
-Miranda
Pretty redwoods.
A monitor we saw sitting in the middle of a bridge during our hike off the Stout Grove. So crazy! Joe carried it out. It was super heavy since it was filled with rocks and mud. We gave it to a park ranger.
Pretty foggy redwoods.
Joe and I in front of a redwood in the Tall Trees Grove. This isn't the tallest tree, but we did see it!
Along the crazy long road. Right after we got out of the fog. This was a prescribed burn area.
[ 2 comments ] ( 3 views )
Some log trucks drove by this morning so we decided it wasn't really safe to let the kitties out. We were just too close to the road. We left right away in the morning and headed for town.
We found a trailhead on Hill Lake right next to some of the dunes. We really wanted to check out the dunes some, we stopped there and went for a hike. It was super fun. We didn't really follow the trail. We went up in the dunes and walked around quite a bit.
From there we decided to head towards Cape Arago and the state parks there. We stopped at a sushi place in North Bend that was excellent. Once we got out to the coast again, we found a County Park that is relatively cheap, has showers (we were full of sand) and is pretty close to some decent surf. Not only that, we have good internet. :D We may stay here a few nights. We'll see.
-Miranda
Curly, Pickles and Zoe looking out the window. Lucy was there earlier but of course I didn't have my camera ready.
Our footprints up the sand dune.
Me walking along the sand dunes.
[ add comment ]
We went for a hike on Saturday. We biked down the hill to the first trail. The first time here, we biked all the way down to the end of the road and went on the hike there. This time we didn't go down as far because we remembered there was an earlier hike. We went on that one and it was a very nice hike. The views were gorgeous.
We left our comfy spot on Monday. It would have been nice to wait until Tuesday, but we were out of sink water and running very low on drinking water, so doing dishes was getting to be a huge pain. We drove through Newport to the South Beach State Park campground and got through Thursday night there.
We were able to go surfing yesterday some. It was a bit painful, but the waves were a nice size. Joe got beat up pretty bad just because it's been so long. Hopefully we'll get some more surfing in while we're here.
Today we decided to drive into town to run some errands. Pickles' eye still hasn't been looking good. We found a vet that was nice enough to stay a little late into her lunch to see us. She recommended seeing an ophthalmologist, but we would have to go in to Corvallis or Eugene to see them. The other option was to try out new antibiotic drops for a week to see if they help. So, that's what we're trying. If her eye still looks bad in a week, we'll try to find an ophthalmologist.
-Miranda
Curly always rides in my lap while driving. Lucy, if it's cold, often rides in Joe's lap. For some reason, she came up in my lap and lay down next to Curly. This has never happened before and she normally doesn't like to be by anyone else, especially not touching them. We decided it was because my lap was in the sun and Joe's wasn't. :D
Another decent photo of Zoe!
An amusing sign during our hike.
A gorgeous view.
The very neat forest in that area. The forest we were in was amazing to walk through. The needles basically don't allow anything but these tiny plants to grow underneath them.
[ 1 comment ] ( 8 views )
It did stop raining, which was fortunate for the leaks and our power. We checked out the beach and the surf. The waves were really sloppy and there looked like an algae bloom. We basically just spent the day working instead since we had good internet. We went to the Mexican place that we liked so much across the highway. It was good again, but we ate way too much.
The waves were supposed to be better on Thursday. They were definitely cleaner, but the algae nastiness was still there, so we decided to pass since we would be in Newport in not too long and the surf is generally pretty good there. We took Betty out to eat at a cute restaurant where they had a vegetarian lasagna that was very good. Then we headed out. The plan was to get to the forest just north of Lincoln City and stay where we knew we had a good spot and good internet.
The first time we were here (three years ago) there was a large spruce across the road, so we could only get to one area. We just guessed that the road would be cleared, so we kept driving. It was. We are now parked in a very nice spot in the forest and have good internet. Our plan is to stay here over labor day weekend. We'll probably mostly just be working, but maybe go on a bike ride or hike. We'll see.
-Miranda
[ add comment ]
Back Next
Calendar