Fort Stevens

Our month here is almost over. We've kayaked from the landing Lewis and Clark used, walked on the beaches, climbed Saddleback mountain and Tillamook Head and hosted our neighbors from Seattle, Jackie and John, and Frank's son, Brian, all while working twenty hours a week. The weather has been constantly on our minds this month. These two pictures say it all. The first is from July 21st, the second from July 28th.

Frank and Judy

Well, we've been park volunteers for a week now, working the front kiosk, answering questions like "Where is the Iredale?" (which we now know is a famous wreck on the sand), and getting to know the park. Our favorite story so far concerns the wreck. The Peter Iredale ran aground in 1906, and is still visible as a rusting steel hulk today. Sometime in the mid 50's a man showed up at the park with a deed to the Iredale. It seems his grandfather had bought it for scrap shortly after the wreck, hadn't been able to do anything with it and had left the deed in his strongbox to be inherited by this man. He announced that he was suing the state of Oregon for failure to properly care for his property (it wa a total wreck) and he wanted compensation. The state's lawyers, after they got over the shock, put their heads together and came back with this counterproposal. At that time, the beach was a legal road in Oregon, and, as such, this man had left an abandoned vehicle on the road, for which the accumulated fines would be umptyump dollars and change. They agreed to mutually forget about suits and the ship is still there today. For anyone traveling the Oregon Coast, this is a nice camp. It has history, old battlements to climb around, a beach, wind for kites, miles and miles of safe bicycle trails, and is only 20 miles from Cannon Beach.

Heading to Fort Stevens

We apologize for the long absence from the blog. For the first time, we have had trouble getting internet connections fast enough to send pictures. We went down to Bodega Bay to surf (unsuccessfully) and fish and then up 101 through the Redwoods and visiting friends and family. Tomorrow we start our month as hosts at Fort Stevens. We hope to see some of you down there. Just look for the bright kayaks our in front of our site. As an aside, we have been distressed at the condition of the California State parks. The roads through the parks are old, potholed and narrow; the sites are short for today's RV culture, and the bathrooms are old and worn. Oregon, on the other hand, has dedicated its lottery dollars to their park system. They are updating their sites, the roads are newly paved and they have bought new land for parks. Washington falls somewhere in between, not as updated as Oregon, but not as bad as California. And they are the most expensive of the three.

Ocean Cove

We headed for the coast after leaving Alameda, since inland was 98 degrees and the coast was 70. At highway 1, Frank turned north instead of south, as we had intended, and on that road, it was a commitment. Those of you who have driven HWY 1 just imagine doing it in a truck pulling a 30 foot RV. It was intense, but no real problems. We started looking for campsites and found nothing that would take our length. Then we saw a camping sign, a little general store with people sitting out front and decided to stop. What a lucky break. It is a legendary spot among abalone hunters, and some people stay for the six months it is open. Judi and Judy took us in, led us to a spot on the bluff, Scott and Diane showed us how to catch and clean abalone and shared the take with us, Steve even shared his internet. In between, we hiked the hills around, paddled our kayaks in the bay, and explored the wineries near Healdsport. It was a wonderful several days. Now we are indeed at the end of that planned left turn, in Bodega Bay, where there are supposed to be beginner surfing waves and maybe a party boat fishing expedition. What a trip. Two weeks to go until we are expected at the northern border of Oregon for our hosting gig.

happy chances

One of the joys of this year is the happy accidents along the way. We left Washington, literally under a cloud, escaping from the cold, wet weather. We got off I-5 south of Mount Shasta at Dunsmuir, because we liked the sound of the name. It turned out to be a delightful small town, with friendly people who loved their town, a sparkling river and cliffs to climb. Then on to the Bay Area to visit Brad and Janie and Sabrina, with the discovery of a campground high above a lake where we could entertain Janie's parents , and with neighbors from England and a stimulating evening talking about the differences and similarities between the U.S. and Europe.

Surfing!

This is how we always imagined our new life. New experiences, fun people, beautiful surroundings. We signed up for surfing lessons from Kayak Adventures and spent a glorious day catching (and not catching) waves and learning some invaluable ways of handling the surf. Our new, little boats are perfect. Hop on, and paddle out. Then, tired and happy, it was back to camp for steak and salad. As we were touring the holiday campsites looking for deserving dogs to share our steak bones with, we came upon a musical family singing old country songs, and joined in. Perfect end to a perfect day. Today we are going to watch the surfing competitions at Neah Bay. Our instructor, Sean, from yesterday, is the Master's World Champion.

New Toys

Meet the newest members of our RV family, Slick and Sleek. We stopped by a kayak store to drool yesterday, missing our Eddylines, and thinking of the paddling we could be doing, and----we saw these cute little fellows, all chubby and short, just fitting on our truck cab. Tammy, the owner, sensing lowered self-control, suggested a trial paddle on a nearby bay. Oh, my. They turn on a dime, they actually track, they are incredibly stable, and you can snorkel and fish from a sit-aboard. So now we have to make a run to Seattle for our paddles and pfd's. Tammy, bless her, is lending us gear for the next week to play around here. They will be especially fun when we host at Fort Stevens for the month of July.

Judy and Frank