27Oct 2011 by Lboll

Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park, Florence Oregon

On our way to our next site we stopped at Heceta Head Lighthouse and had a nice tour. This lighthouse is going to be closed for two years to be renovated.We visited this lighthouse’s twin two days later about 40 miles farther south on the coast.The second lighthouse, Umpqua Lighthouse, was run by the Coast Guard at one time and was in much better condition than its twin.We also toured this lighthouse, 52 steps to the top, and were able to go into the lens as it was rotating. [gallery link="file" columns="2"] This was an absolutely beautiful lens that was installed in the lighthouse in 1897.We were in awe of the craftsmanship and engineering that went into making this 2 ton lens which came from France. Again our drive along…

24Oct 2011 by Lboll

South Beach State Park,Newport, Oregon

State Parks

[gallery columns="2"] Driving south on the coast from Nehalem to Newport we saw again more beautiful coast. We didn’t do a lot of stopping just because it is hard to pull over with the 5th wheel.Our next stop was South Beach State Park in Newport.Newport is a larger seaside community.When you drive into a town and the first thing you see is a Wal-Mart you know it is a larger community.Newport has two lighthouses, one when you enter the town and one when you leave the town.Yaquina Head Lighthouse sits on a cliff as you enter town.We spent an entire afternoon at this lighthouse. After climbing 105 steps to the top of the lighthouse we went down another 70 steps to the rocky beach shore to see the tidepools.I was…

20Oct 2011 by Lboll No Comments

Fort Stevens and Nehalem Bay State Parks, Oregon

State Parks

Our first stop on the Pacific Coast was Fort Stevens State Park, another one of Oregon’s beautiful state parks. This park is Oregon’s largest state park with almost 500 sites.We were so excited about getting a nice shaded site not thinking that we weren’t in Minnesota in the middle of summer.Our site was very nice but very dark and very, very damp because it was so shaded.We felt we were in the middle of a rain forest.Of course, it didn’t help that it rained a little every day of the four days we were there.Even with the on and off rain we got in many walks on the beach,biking on the wonderful bike trails this park had, toured the very interesting Fort Stevens and went to the farmers market in…

17Oct 2011 by Lboll

The Gorge in Oregon

Traveling

The Gorge loop is a drive that you can take on both the Oregon and Washington side of the Columbia River with more than 150 points of interest. We stayed on the Oregon side mostly because we again picked a rainy, foggy day and we just ran out of time during the day.We had again been advised to park our 5th wheel and take just our truck through the Gorge which was very good advice.The road was nicely paved but very narrow and of course in was in the foothills of the mountains so we had a lot of climbing.The road took us through the rain forests of Oregon and we saw spectacular waterfalls.Multnomah Falls is the most spectacular with a 620-foot drop, the second highest year-round waterfall in the…

01Oct 2011 by Lboll

Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, Oregon

On Our Minds

We didn’t have to drive very far into Northeastern Oregon to start to see the beauty of the state. We had been told by so many fellow RVers that we were going to love Oregon. We could already see what they meant. It was beautiful. We still saw the farm land that we saw in Idaho but we also saw mountains and valleys. We decided to go into the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest for our first few nights of camping in Oregon. We found this spectacular campground in the National Forest about 20 miles from Baker City called Union Creek. They were in the process of closing it for the winter so we were only able to stay for three nights. It was beautiful! All sites were surrounded by huge red…