Our first host job

Learning the ropes

 

We have contemplated camp hosting or volunteering at state parks for quite a while. Last summer on our tour of Oregon, we took a closer look at the parks, job descriptions and opportunities. We decided to sign up at several different parks in different positions. The positions fill early but often have cancellations. A few things we look at when choosing a park was how far the grocery stores were, how close  hiking is and the bike riding routes available.

Some of the benefits of hosting in Oregon State Parks is staying in a great park for a month or more without charge, free nights in route and free entry into local museums. Plus we get to meet nice people and feel like we are contributing in a good way.

Things were pretty quiet even with spring breaks in Oregon and Washington.

 

 

Our first position is Fort Stevens State Park located on the northwest corner of Oregon where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean.  Our job is to sell firewood 5 days a week from 4-8pm. Our trailer is right next to the wood bin. On slow days, which is most of April except the weekends, we put out the sign to check with the hosts in site H1, our site. We just enjoy the rest of the day.

Western Skunk Cabbage

This eagle was huge sitting high in a tree along the river.

The 4200 acres of this state park is larger than we had realized with over 500 campsites, making it the largest in the western US. It is well laid out and everyone has plenty of room. This takes a lot of different types of camp hosts. Right now there are only 12 sites with host but goes up to 25 in the busy season. Some people's jobs are to ride around or walk and pick up trash and be available to answer people's questions. It is much about having an official presence on each loop.  

We like watching the pilots board the large ships as they enter the Columbia River and the tug boats that pull them along.

 Initially constructed during the Civil War, Fort Stevens remained active through World War II. Sea mines were used as a means to defend the river’s mouth from enemy intrusion. The mines were attached to the bottom of the river by cables, then detonated by remote control from an on-base switchboard. Everything associated with the mines, with the exception of the explosives, were kept within the Mine Cable Storeroom.

 

The miles of bike trails are well maintained and wind all through the woods in the park and are well used by the families. Our morning walk to the shipwreck beach is one mile each way and the trail around the Coffinbury Lake is 2 miles around.  We stopped at the lake on our return walk from the ocean to watch the Osprey diving into the lake and pull out a fish.

 

Some days, we ride our bikes the 4 miles to the historic area and along the river's jetty. There are tours both in an Army truck and underground which we can take for free as volunteers.

We like being right near three towns making grocery shopping easy and less time consuming.

We do get a bar or two of Verizon which is fine most of the time for us. But get a very cool Blues station which we don't find very often in our travels. This station features artists we haven't heard in ages.

The Peter Iredale was a 19th century, 4-masted steel ship that ran aground in 1906 on the Clatsop Spit. Today it is considered one of the most accessible shipwrecks of the Graveyard of the Pacific.

 

Kites were flying high during spring break.

We wake to the sound of fog horns of the ships going up the Columbia River from the Pacific Ocean in the morning marine layer.  At night we are lulled to sleep by bullfrogs that can get pretty loud at times. We like it.

 

Lighthouses and Tidepooling

Driving up the Coast 

Port Orford

Last spring we visited the small port town of Port Orford  to ride our bikes on the Wild River Scenic Bikeway. Our first two days of our return visit were sunny, but the third was cold and raining. We pulled out our books and settled in. We usually like to get outside and walk to get in our 10,000 steps a day despite the weather. Not this day. I bet even the whales that are heading north to Alaska took a detour.

This dog's owner joined us on our morning walk on the beach. We would have missed the ship wreck that had been mostly covered in sand if he hadn't pointed it out.

Funny little rock on the beach

We are always learning something new in our travels. While driving along the ocean, we would stop to walk along the beach.  We noticed a couple digging along the surf in the sand and (Deb AKA "The Stalker") had to find out what they were doing. He would dig in the sand and toss it across the beach looking for sand crabs to be used as bait for catching ocean perch. The sand crabs are very fast at disappearing back into the sand. No razor clamming in the area right now as they are toxic.

 No bigger than a thumb, a sand crab spends most of its time buried in shifting sand. Sand crabs feed in the swash zone—an area of breaking waves. As the swash zone moves up and down the beach with the tide, so do sand crabs. surfperch's diet is 90% sand crabs. Surf fishermen use sand crabs as bait.




More fishermen digging for sand crabs

 At Cape Blanco Lighthouse, hiking along the bluff as the sun glistened waves crashed, we watched for whales in the distance. Mostly we would just see their blow holes spouting in the distance.

Bandon, Oregon

While staying in Port Orford, we were  only 26 miles from the cute touristy town of Bandon. This summer we will be spending a month at Bullards Beach State Park volunteering and decided to check out the town which is across the Coquille River from the state park.



Coquille Lighthouse at the mouth of the Coquille River.

The fisherman on the Coquille River were giving us tips on catching Dungeness Crabs at high tide. (Yep, the stalker was at it again) They filled the trap's bait box with old fish parts and chicken, put it in the river for 30 minutes and out came crab. They kept the males 6 inches and larger and returned the rest. 

Face Rock Beach was another Whales Spoken Here site.

Face Rock had hundreds of birds nesting and a few whales spouting in the distance. I guess you can probably tell that our whale watching was less than we expected. But we did see one breach.

Bandon has sand art on Sunday mornings when the tide is low. Then it is washed away with the high tide. 

Bandon-by-the-Sea is the self-proclaimed Cranberry Capital of Oregon. The restaurants and shops have cranberries prepared in many inventive ways. At harvest time, the farmer floods the bogs and uses a reel to loosen the berries from the vines. The floating berries are then skimmed off and loaded onto trucks. The Oceanspray plant is easily accessible on the highway. We may have to check out the cranberry bog tour when we return to Bandon in June.

 Checking the tide tables is a good idea before hiking down into the Punchbowl. Sneaker tides have been known to get a few people when they turn their backs. A lady was recently rescued after not paying attention to the tide. The waves threw up a large log trapping her and breaking 14 ribs landing her in ICU for a week. 

We  had arrived about an hour before low tide and had plenty of time for a little hike.

Oregonians are hardy people that get outdoors no matter that the weather is. We saw surfers in their wetsuits and kids in their shorts and t-shirts playing in the ocean waves when the air temperature was 45 degrees. Made me feel like a wimp in my down coat and gloves walking on the beach. I am ok with that.

One more lighthouse. Heceta Head lighthouse in Newport.

We managed to drive the 101 the entire length of Oregon and northern California and don't see that again in our future. The road was winding and hilly through small towns with speeds usually around 35 mph. The 150 mile drive with plenty of construction stops took quite a few hours. It felt like we were back in the 1920s.  

I think we are good with staying put for the next month in Fort Stevens State Park and exploring this area.

Heading up the Highway 101 coast

Sonoma County Bike Rides

We managed to avoid avalanches and rockslides leaving Colorado along with the Snow cyclone. And then, made some changes in our plans to avoid the 50 mile per hour wind gusts across the Mojave Desert. I am not sure why we drove through Oakland but managed unscathed once we paid our $21 toll to cross a bridge. It has been a long trip but finally got a chance to get our bikes out and enjoy Sonoma County.

Spring has sprung in Sonoma County.

 We visited Cloverdale three years ago and enjoyed riding between the vineyards and olive farms but vowed that we would not stay at the Thousand Trails RV Park in Cloverdale ever again after our first visit. The RV Park in Healdsburg was closed after the Russian River flooded last month. This left the KOA way upon the hill. The bridge was out in Asti which meant we had to drive through Cloverdale 4 miles down steep, winding country roads.

 

 

We were tired on our arrival and wondered if it was worth it to drive back and forth from this campground to ride our bikes. When we are tired and want to throw in the towel, we give it a day and good night's sleep before making a decision. The next day, we were happy with our place in the hills and didn't mind the drive to town. In fact, we were enjoying ourselves so much, we added another day even if it was $71/ night, bought some firewood and settled in.

 

 

It is the off season so we didn't realize how large the place was until we walked around and watched the kids fishing in the little pond in the mornings and evenings.

 

After not riding our bikes in a month, it felt strange to be back in the saddle again, so the song goes. Our first day was through the flat country roads near Geyserville. The next day had lots of hills to remind us of the month that we had been off the bikes.

Alaska Airline has a deal for wine drinkers that every bag that is checked with a bottle of wine on a returning flight is free. One winery we stopped in had a bottle of chardonnay for $145. I would think twice about putting it in a bag to be checked. I have seen how they throw bags on the luggage carts.

 

 

At the end of the ride, we stopped in the Dry Creek General Store for lunch. At the counter we gave them our order, the girl at the cash register told us to go get our drinks and then rang us up. She called our number when it was ready so we could get it and take it to our table. When I paid with a charge card, there was a place for a tip. I wasn't sure what I was tipping for since I basically served myself and thought that I should get the tip myself since I bused by own table when we were done. Am I missing something?  It is just too confusing sometimes.  She did have a nice smile. 

 

Avenue of the Giants

The small logging town of Scotia on Highway 101 in California was a 250 mile drive, putting us at the northern entry to Avenue of the Giants.   A 31-mile portion of old Highway 101 parallels Freeway 101 with its 51,222 acres of redwood groves is surrounded by the Humboldt Redwoods State Park which has the largest remaining stand of virgin redwoods in the world.

You have got to love a tree house in the redwoods with room for four.

Dryerville Giant

 The giant Dryerville Giant redwood once stood 362 ft. tall and was considered the tallest tree in the park before its fall in 1991. The redwood’s crash to the ground moved the earth so much that it registered on a seismograph 10 miles away. One local, who heard the impact from half a mile away, thought a train had crashed.   362 ft. in height 17 ft. diameter 52 ft. circumference Possibly 2,000 years old

 

Harris Beach State Park, Oregon

 As we headed up the 101 in California, parts of the highway had been washed out by mudslides, making a one lane road in several places.

 

 

We made it to Oregon! Last spring we had stayed in Southern Oregon at Harris Beach State Park and enjoyed it very much. We stopped again for a few days to stock up on groceries at the great Fred Myers and just walk the beach. The grocery stores in small towns along the ocean can get pretty expensive.

What a difference a day makes. We were glad to enjoy the sunshine before the rain.

You can't keep us inside...





It was so funny to watch the black oystercatchers marching on the beach.

Whale Watching

Whale-watching enthusiasts from all over the world head to the Oregon coast for Spring Whale Watch Week as 20,000 grey whales migrate from Mexico to Alaska.

Each year, the Whale Watching Spoken Here program places volunteers at 24 locations spread out on the coast during spring break week, beginning March 23.We had hoped to volunteer for the week but weren't able to attend the training in December.

 

Volunteers document gray whale habits and traits as the mammals make their migration north past Oregon to Alaska during warmer months with whale watching sites from Astoria to Brookings. Volunteers are on-site from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. every day during the week.

During the Whale Watch Week, it’s estimated that about 10 whales per hour are passing any given location on the Oregon Coast. On a perfect day — very beautiful, calm ocean and nice blue skies — you could see a half a dozen or more whales in a very short period of time.  We managed to see whales even though the surf was rough our first evening after a rainy day.