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Published: July 26th 2011
Portland, OR
Sarah Karns and I On Friday we woke up to a splendid sunny morning and (once again) slowwwwwly got ourselves motivated and out the door. The fun was cleaning up a soiled and damp motel room from our previous nights camping, aka soaked tents, muddy shoes and general gear disarray. We were out the door with a spare 30 minutes before required check out time.
Heading into Tillamook, Oregon, the sun was hidden behind the clouds typical of the NW, grey and cloudy but, come on, it's the NW coast. Cheese factory visits to both Blue Heron (a glorified but enjoyable gift shop) and Tillamook were enjoyed. Tillamook offered free icecream at the entry so I(Jamey) was simply blown away, the factory was plugging along and the free samples of cheese where worth the 5 minute wait, most amazing was the crazy cheese obsessed crowds that bogged down every hallway and extended the gift shop line for miles and yes, we were part of that crowd.
We saw spectacular coast lines along Highway 101 and made it down to Newport, slowly with all the other gaping tourists. A particularly memorable moment was the old women in the station wagon in the wrong lane,
the LEFT, at an overlook entrance, waving us by to the LEFT, because she'd given up using logic and reason while driving on the highway. Hopefully she realized how in the wrong she was and didn't cause an accident. We did get to see a fin of a whale at the Foulweather Vista Point outside of Newport. We also found the Rouge River Brewery in Newport. Very cool little town!
We adondoned the slow crawl down the coast highway and headed inland to saner driving and hours enjoying the Oregon mountains and wilderness, all of it beautiful. Check out the picture from a gas station in Eugene, even the most lefty Colorado liberal would laugh a Whole Foods-esque convenient store, with espresso counter and 20 types of vegan, gluten-free, organic, non-GMO, fair trade nutrition bars without a bag of Dorritos to be seen in the store.
A desperate yet unexpectant visit to a state park at 8pm yeilded no vacancy but one was found a county park for a "pitch-a-tent and crash" style camping.
The next morning we left for the legenday Redwoods National (and State) Park and we were not dissappointed. The Ranger station in the
delightful town of Crescent City recommended an easy and fun 1.5 mile hike to camping area right next to the Tall Tree Loop Trail. The drive through the park was shady and awe-inspiring leading us to the last Ranger Station for a bear container and FREE permits for our backcountry pass, parking and fire allowance.
The hike sent us down a steep decline through true giants of nature, Redwoods, for those not lucky enough to see them in person, they are indescribable. They appear to be normal-ish trees until you stand infront of them and blink in shock of the shear towering presence that is a redwood. We saw trees hundreds and hundreds of years old. Trees that stood over centuries and centuries that witnessed human's slow progression of science from bow and arrows to ships to combustion engines to computers. They lend themselves to only respect and awe and we were surrounded by them, simply brillant. It was emotional to saw the least.
The campsite we were gifted with was on the Redwood Creek and was perfect, a shady tent site with a smooth, shallow and peaceful stream to dip our feet into and to watch wildlife
enjoy. Deer, otters, birds-a-plenty, ducks (with ducklings) and even a little snake all made their presence available to us. Cuddling (ahhhhh) by a campfire ended near perfect outdoor day for both us. We packed up the next morning and headed out to Humbolt County.
Eureka, is nothing like the show, but provided a nice spot to grab some great food and crappy beer (Lost Coast Brewery) and we were slowed by the cloudy, grey weather and lack of beach camping available. Settling into a pay camping site (32 Bucks!) we enjoyed the Redwood trees for another evening and some well made Hamburger A la Foil (tweaks will be made but we're getting there), and raspberry/chocolate s'mores, then back North to Oregon. The drive through North California was awesome, the Shasta-Trinity National Forest was one great highway turn after another following rivers to lakes to mountain tops, the toughest part was not stopping and just hiking down any of the attractive begging dirt roads that peppered the long winding highway. The absolute cherry on the top of the sundae was the Golden Eagle we saw mere feet away on our drive, it's head was over 3 feet tall as it
stood then flapped its' mammoth wings, slowly, it's wingspan longer then our car is wide. Thank you! Thank you!
Now in Ashland, OR and found a worthy brewery.
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