Kaliloch, WA to Victoria, B.C. (Home)

Slept in a bit this morning but up in time to have a walk on the beach on the west coast of Washington State. Then we hit the road for the ferry. We stopped at the tourist info place in Forks, WA to update this blog on their wi-fi. While I was there a fellow who was sitting in his car got out and started asking the usual traveller questions. Where you from? Where’ve you been?

When I told him I was from Vancouver Island, he got going on this long tirade about how he had two kids in Nanaimo and hadn’t seen them in nine years because of his psycho wife and the Canadian justice system. He said he was from Vermont originally. He was driving a car with Colorado plates. In any event, his justice rant soon led to various observations about the U.S. political system and some predictable conspiracy theories. By the time he got going on Obama I was thinking that it wasn’t the wife who was the psycho. I finally told him I had to catch a ferry and that broke his train of thought (if there was one) and he was off.

The ferry was pretty much full. Only a couple of places left empty at the back of the boat. It was foggy and chilly in Port Angeles and on the first part of the crossing. (I’ve never seen it sunny and warm in P.A.) As a result for the first third of the crossing the captain kept blowing the Coho’s horn which is not Eliot’s favourite sound even now that he’s gotten a bit deaf. But as we got closer to Victoria the fog dissipated and by the time we entered Victoria harbour it was a very pleasant afternoon.

Good to be home.

Nehalem State Park to Olympic Nat. Park

Packed up today for the final leg of this month long road trip. The weather was so fine this morning ... not a cloud and the sun warming things up nicely by 9:00am. But duty calls. I see from the MEC intranet that I am scheduled for a shift on Monday, October 1. Besides I’ve run out of clean underwear and socks so we might as well pack it in.

No big rush today as there are only two sailings of the Coho Ferry from Port Angeles these days: at 8:00am and 2:00pm. And there’s about 6 hours of driving. So the plan was to stop overnight in Olympic National Park. Which we have.

On previous trips to the coast I’ve noticed, just north of Cannon Beach, a sign for Ecola State Park. I’ve always been past the turn off before I’ve noticed. Today I made a point of finding this park and it turned out to have some spectacular views of the coast. There’s a two mile winding, hilly road into the park. But lots of parking when you get there. And plenty of views like this.

There are also hiking trails that will take you quite a ways north along the coast and down to some of the beaches. But we didn’t really have time to explore those. But next time for sure.

Next stop was Astoria, Oregon. Although we’d not come far it was time for lunch so I checked out a restaurant called The Blue Scorcher. I had a pesto pizza and a really tasty salad. The place had been recommended to me by a couple who had been befriended by Eliot at Nehalem. They were cooking with a frying pan a couple of sites over from ours and I suspect Eliot thought that bacon might be involved. Joke was on Eliot, they’re vegans!

 

 

 

Building detail – Astoria

 

 

After lunch in Astoria it was a three hour drive to Olympic National Park in Washington State. The park is huge but we’re staying in a narrow strip of the park that runs for about 15 miles along the Pacific coast in Kaliloch. We arrived around 6:30pm. Time to catch a few shots of the sunset.

Nehalem State Park

Stayed put today. Long walk on the beach with Eliot this morning. The tide was out so there was lots of hard, flat sand to walk on.

In the afternoon Eliot seemed uninterested in getting in the basket on the bike for a ride into nearby Manzanita so, since it wasn’t very warm, I put him in the car and went on my own. Had a nice lunch at a bakery/café on the main street. Browsed the next door bookstore where I bought (and am enjoying very much) the new book by Julian Barnes called “The Sense of an Ending”.

Back to liberate Eliot from the van. A walk around the park. Numerous chats with other dog owners. Late supper. More reading. Then to bed.

Looking towards Manzanita (bottom right) from the dunes at Nehalem State Park.

South Beach S.P. to Nehalem Bay, S.P.

A splendid day on the Oregon coast. There was no fog when the sun came up this morning and by 9am I was sitting outside reading in shorts and a t-shirt. Often on the coast the sun is shrouded in fog or low cloud until it burns off later in the morning.

Since we were just going up the coast fewer than a hundred miles, we were in no rush. Just north of Newport we stopped at Otter State Park to enjoy the views. And there was lots to see. There were whales heading up and down the coast quite near to shore. We and the others who had stopped probably had better views than the people in the whale watching boats out on the water. And there were big swells on the Pacific making for big surf when the waves finally hit land.

A little further up the coast we stopped at a spot I always take in when driving Highway 101. Cape Kiwanda is off 101 near a little village called Pacific City. I imagine that the population of Pacific City is under 1,000 souls. We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant that is run by a couple of those souls. The two women were run off their feet – one behind the counter and one waiting tables indoors and out. The place was packed mostly with locals although one tourist was surprised at the cash when he discovered they only took cash or cheques. I had a yummy turkey and bacon wrap with delicious coleslaw. Eliot was allowed some bacon so that made his afternoon.

Cape Kiwanda is just up the road from Pacific City. There is a beautiful beach and one of those huge Oregon coast rocks out in the ocean. Luck was with us as there was a surfing competition going on. A long board competition that also included events for stand up paddleboarders. It was fun to watch but I couldn’t figure out exactly what was being judged. Since my teenage years I have always thought that surfing was the coolest of the cool.

And Helmut was delighted to be surrounded by lots of Westy buddies. There was one on the beach (see above) and three in the parking lot just in one row.

(Click on any of the photos on the blog for a larger size)

And around 5:30pm we arrived at Nehalem State Park near Manzanita, Oregon. It’s a beautiful park and we have a campsite just a few steps from the path to the beach which is about four miles long. We’re actually going to stay here for two nights and then make serious moves in the direction of home.

Cascadia State Park to South Beach S.P.

Before we left Cascadia State Park this morning Eliot did his best to leave his ‘mark’. Overnight the park was almost empty which I found a little surprising given the fine weather and the fact that it was a weekend. No matter it was quiet and I slept well. We packed up late and headed further down Hwy 20 through Sweet Home, Lebanon, Albany and Corvalis. Between the Corvalis and the coast the GPS took us on quite a big run-around after we’d pulled off onto a side road. In stead of just saying “turn around” it took us on a long circle just to get us back to where we were 20 minutes before. I guess the GPS couldn’t suggest a U-Turn. But there must be some way of indicating that a big loop can be avoided by just going in the other direction to the one your currently pointed in.

By mid-afternoon we arrived in Newport, Oregon and headed down Hwy 101 to South Beach State Park. It’s just a mile or two out of town. My sister and I had stayed here last September when she had her west coast visit. Up and down the Oregon coast there are many bridges. Some big, some small. This big bridge crosses Newport harbour.

It’s good to be back on the coast although the change in temperature from yesterday in the interior and today on the coast was bracing. Yesterday around 30°C and today in Newport is around 18°C.

South Beach has an extensive area of dunes.

Burns, OR to Cascade State Park

We spent the morning driving further along Hwy 20 across a very arid plain that lies in the middle of Oregon. Who would believe this photo was taken in Oregon.

I thought we’d finally driven out of the forest fire smog but it turns out we’ve driven into a new forest fire zone. There is a huge blaze south of Sister, Oregon.

The above photo was taken at a rest stop in Brothers, Oregon. Americans seem to have a love hate relationship with their dogs. At many of the rest stops, dogs are only allowed at either end of the rest stop grounds. It’s usually a pretty inhospitable area for human or canine. For instance, I feared we would run into rattlesnakes when I took Eliot here for a whiz.

I have driven through so much lightly populated country over the past two weeks that it’s always a bit of a shock to drive into a town or city of any size. After two hours of desert, I was not quite prepared for the traffic congestion in Bend, Oregon (pop.65,000)

Up until now I have not said much about how the old 1984 VW has been performing. No point in tempting fate. But it has been doing remarkably well. I’ve been careful to keep an eye on the oil and coolant levels and so far we’ve put more than 20,000 kilometers on the overhauled engine. But as we entered Bend, Oregon I put my foot on the brake and my foot went all the way to the floor. Yikes! A little pumping of the brake pedal and the brakes came back only to disappear the next time I needed to stop. At least if we were going to have a problem, I could easily find help.

So I finally found a Les Schwab(?). Their staff had been really helpful a couple of years ago when I needed a new tire in Townsend, Washington. They didn’t make faces or snide remarks when they saw what I was driving and took old Helmut into a bay to check out the brakes. About a half hour later the guy (Barry) came to me looking quite serious. But it turned out not to be ... serious, that is. He said that everything about the brakes seemed fine and that there were no leaks. He suggested that perhaps the braking fluid has gotten too hot and ‘boiled’ creating air in the brake lines. He said it might be worth draining and flushing the ‘old’ brake fluid since as it gets old it’s boiling temperature gets lower. But he didn’t think it would be dangerous to continue on my way. So I did. And lucky me. They were having free brake inspections that week.

Since there was an oil change place around the corner, I took Helmut there for some new oil. Usually I change the oil once or twice a year but we’ve really been racking up the kilometers so it seemed like a good idea.

From Bend, Oregon, Hwy 20 goes over a couple passes in the Cascade Mountains. They’re not high like some of the passes further east but they are no less brutal.

It’s amazing how much the landscape changes in just a hour’s worth of driving. Up one side of the mountain where it looks as if it hasn’t rained for years then down the other side into a more familiar landscape of forests of ferns and huge trees with moss hanging from them. The temperature also dropped and as we descended from 4,000 feet we were in cloud for the first time in many days.

We’re spending the night at Cascadia State Park. It’s a tenting park where Helmut fits in quite nicely. They’ve built new shower buildings but they’re not open yet. The sign says opening 2012 but the park closes for the season at the end of September so it looks as if they’re not going to make it.

Tomorrow off to the coast.

Picabo, Idaho to Burns, Oregon

Sunrise this morning at the fisherman’s camp (courtesy of the state of Idaho) where we stayed last night. The ‘camp’ is beside a river which must be good for fishing. And it’s sort of squeezed between two huge fields of something that the farmer and his helpers started reaping this morning quite early. With really noisy machinery. No matter. I let Eliot under the sleeping bag and we dozed off for another hour not arising until 8:15am. The farmer and his gang were still at it. Last night we were also treated to the carryings on of a bunch of coyotes. They yipped and yapped during the early part of the night but then decided to go elsewhere.

We were back on Highway 20 continuing west towards the coast. At Mountain Home, Idaho we had to hop on the Interstate for an hour and a half to get to Ontario, Oregon where we were able to pick up R20 again. I stopped in Mountain Home for a snack and some coffee. On our way out of town, I saw a business that specializes in RV parts and decided to ask them about the awning on the VW. It came with the van and is quite effective at repelling rain and sunshine. However, it’s as old as the van (28 years) and I always ended up cursing and swearing (hard to believe, I know) when I had to pack it up. In Nova Scotia I had added some spacers to keep it from catching on the side, sliding door. I guess my engineering know-how is not so great because my modifications caused the two little feet that sit against the body of the van to break off. Metal fatigue??

In any event, the awning was now even more annoying catching on the sliding door. As I expected, the guy I talked to said it really couldn’t be fixed. So I decided to junk it. I asked if I could throw it in their dumpster. He helped me remove it and carried it to the dumpster for me. Now that it’s gone I’m convinced that the van rides better. (I’m not suggesting that I’m being logical.) But I’m glad the damn thing’s gone. Of course, a new one might cost several hundred dollars. I think I will come up with something involving a tarp.

We stopped in Ontario, Oregon for a little travel advice and got it from the dearest little old lady at the rest stop. I said I was thinking of taking route 20 all the way to the coast and she said she thought that was a great plan. The first third of the trip has us in Burns, Oregon at a very nice RV Park where I’ve just had my first shower since Sunday.

This morning there was still a lot of smoke in the air when we headed out. By late this afternoon and a third of the way across Oregon, the sky had actually turned blue rather than the grey we’ve had the past few days.

The trip from Ontario involved a couple of mountain passes: Drinkwater Pass (at around 4,200 feet) and Stinkingwater Pass at just over 4,800 feet. Burns, Oregon is on a high, desert prairie at around 4,000 feet.