Southern Oregon

OK, so we began heading north on Sunday and here we are on Wednesday evening finally in Oregon. Back at Cape Blanco State Park just north of Port Orford.

We stayed on the road much longer on Sunday than planned and ended up overnighting at Lost Hills, CA … right beside Interstate Hwy 5. (Lost Hills is a good name for the town as the landscape was as flat as Saskatchewan.)

It wasn’t nearly as noisy as I’d expected and the manager was all apologetic that the pool wasn’t open and only charged me $20. It had been a long hot drive across southern California on Hwy 58 and then up Hwy 99 past Bakersfield and then across to I-5. 

Part of the route west was along Hwy 58 which passes Edwards Air Force Base and the town of Mojave where there’s a huge collection of aircraft sitting in the desert. From the highway it was really only possible to glimpse the BIG planes. But there were a lot of them waiting to find a new airline to call home.

Then just past the airplane parking lot was the biggest wind farm I’ve ever seen. Windmills of all sizes and most of them spinning.

On Monday morning we travelled up I-5 and across Hwy 20 to Ukiah and overnighted at the Redwood Empire Fair Grounds. This was a really boring drive through endless orchards of nut and orange trees. At one point there was a definite smell of something NOT botanical. About fifteen minutes later we drove by a huge feed lot. It seemed to go on for miles and was astonishing in its vastness. The cattle had lots of room to move about and there were even shelters where they could get out of the hot California sun. Still, the sight made me seriously reconsider vegetarianism.

Monday’s travel got us to Trinidad, CA. We stayed at the Big Lagoon County Park not wanting to risk overnighting at Patrick’s Point State Park where I feared there might still be an APB out on us from two weeks ago. This was the view from our campsite.

There’s a long sandbar that separates the lagoon from the open Pacific. I’ve enjoyed the wild surf on the beach on previous stays here but this time it was quite tame. No fear. During the night I awoke to the sounds of huge waves booming as they crashed onto the beach. In my doziness my first thought was TSUNAMI! and began planning our escape. (Could I drive the van with the top up???) Then I realized that if there was a tsunami the ground probably would have shaken so likely we were safe. Still being only a few feet above sea level in a tsunami zone can spook one in the middle of the night.

As we travelled up the coast and into Oregon (finally) the huge surf and wind followed us and there were lots of places to stop along the way.

Still in California

Lighthouse on a little island (well, an island at high tide) in Crescent City, CA. Crescent City was badly damaged by a tsunami after the big Alaskan earthquake in the 1960s(?).

And finally into Oregon and another night at Cape Blanco State Park. The weather has been sunny and warmish and I think we will linger a bit on the Oregon coast as long as there is no rain. Today further up the coast to Newport, OR.