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Published: March 28th 2008
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Our original ambitious plan was to head down the Oregon coast to San Fran, head east into the Yosemite national park, then travel north back to Vancouver via the interior. We had planned well ahead to camp, and had purchased all the right wet weather gear. We were prepared for bad weather. Needless to say, I was so excited to go on this trip. I really wanted to be close to nature again, away from big cities, public transport, people, time.
So we set off early on the Tuesday morning in the rental car. The drive down to Oregon is long and boring. And once we passed the US - Canadian border, it was just straight, on the I5 all the way to Oregon. US highways are good well marked roads with plenty of rest stops. The funny thing that striked us was the number of Food advertisements along the way - all junk food of course.
It took us 5 hours to get to Oregon. We did all of that on a 3/4 tank, and once in Oregon were desperate to fill up. There is no sales tax in Or, hence the delay in filling up. We didnt
pass through Portland, since we were heading to the coast and travelled straight onto highway 101. This road runs along the Oregon coast, all the way to California.
That night we reached our first state park, Fort Stevens at around 5pm. After setting up camp, we went for a walk on the deserted beach. There is a shipwreck to look at, as well as elk in the surrounding bushes. When we got back, it was dark so we had to cook by candlelight. The racoons that night sat huddled together up one tree watching us prepare our meal. We thought they were cute, and were sleeping, not quite. The minute we left our station we noticed that our wraps (for dinner) and bag of fresh spinach was gone. We had no idea it was the racoons, and spent a while looking for our food wondering where we'd put it. Eventually Benoit headed over to one of the bushes and saw a mass of racoons chowing at our wraps, they didnt touch the spinach. We were incredibly frustrated as well as pissed off at these animals, especially since they were ready to come back for more. They kept on coming
closer to where we were eating, there bravery was astounding. We managed to get our food down without too much harrasment and went to bed, vowing to be more organised the following night.
The next day we travelled south to Cannon beach, and did a short walk in the Ecola state park. The wind was howling, and it was threatening to rain, which it eventually did, just as we returned to the car. We decided that when rains, we'd drive, so thats what we did, stopping over to check out beaches where we could. That night we stayed in a remote state park, which was quite beautifull called Cape Lookout. There were very few people there and luckily the weather cleared up for us to camp. The beach is so nearby we could hear the ocean crashing at night. Unfortunatly this is where I got sick with the flu , and the following day woke up with body pain, headache and rain. From then I got worse, and even though I tried to have a good long sleep at night nothing helped. The following days I stayed mostly in the car, only getting out to take occasional photos whilst
we drove down south. We stayed in Yurts (a tent like structure with wooden beams , mattresses and lights) in the state parks where they were available, but had to camp one night in Harris Beach. We did do a walk at Cape Perpetua to see the giant spruce and the cool coastline. After 3 days I decided to take a rest day in a motel , hoping that I would recover. It was a good day to stay in a motel, because it rained all day and night. After that, I felt much better but still not able to do walks and enjoy the scenery so decided to go home a bit earlier than planned. So we headed down to northern California to check out the massive redwoods, then up through central oregon. We tried to drive to Crater Lake, and even though the road was open, the roads were still quite icy and it was threatening to snow, so we turned back. The drive through central oregon was just as stunning as the coast, full of clean white snow and redwoods. This little Oregon state is really a gem, there is so much to see and so easy
to travel around in not much time. The people are helpful, and state parks are excellent for camping. And.. theres no tax!
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