Darlingtonia Wayside Our first stop today up towards Florence, Oregon was Darlingtonia Wayside. This was a must-do according to Lisa, my biologist/botanist wife. It is the only Oregon state park property dedicated to the protection of a single plant species, the Darlingtonia californica. It’s a very tiny park with a nice boardwalk to view this…

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Today is a rainy day, which seemed like a good day for laundry, yet another lighthouse and an aquarium before heading to Beverly Beach State Park for a two-night stay. Yaquina Bay Lighthouse Laundry Queen was our first stop which sits up on a hill with a very slanted parking lot. We chose to do…

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The Devil’s Punchbowl is at the northern end of Beverly Beach, so we planned to walk the beach to get there rather than try to park Usain in the busy area. That’s a great plan as long as you check the weather RADAR (we did), the rainstorm shows up on RADAR (it didn’t), and you…

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Today was our longest travel days up the 101 coming in at a whopping 90 miles. The scenic drive with hills and lots of curves provided views of the coast, forests, and small towns along the way. We stopped at a farmers’ market that we saw advertised a local newspaper back at the Devil’s Punchbowl.…

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Today, we got a jump start on the crowds at Tillamook Creamery, and had a lovely time eating and buying more delicious crackers, in particular Rainforest Crisps, coming in two flavors at the creamery. We then headed to yet another laundromat (one night of clean bedding ruined by a barfing cat) where I learned a…

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We have reached the northern end of our Oregon coastal travels. From here we will head east and travel the Washington coastline on a future adventure. Cannon Beach & Haystack Rock Our first stop on the way to Fort Stevens State park was Cannon Beach, home of the world famous sea stack called Haystack Rock.…

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For our second day at Fort Stevens State Park we took a morning trip to nearby Astoria and then returned back to the park to observe some military history. Astoria Riverwalk The Astoria Riverwalk is a work in progress. This is a working port area, so it will have an industrial look to it that…

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It was a long travel day today that took us from Fort Stevens State Park to Ainsworth State Park. Well, 2 1/2 hours of driving in one day is long for us since we reached the west coast a few weeks ago. We took an alternate route east than what is shown in the Google…

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Having settled on a plan to see the beautiful Columbia River Gorge falls, we had to leave our campground early this morning and make our way back west to the town of Corbett, Oregon. The boarding site for the Hop-On Hop-Off Waterfall Trolley is at the town’s K-12 public school parking lot. We knew from…

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Laundry is overdue, so that was the chore for this morning. It is so nice to have a lovely laundry room at the KOA which is close to our site; it was clean and reasonably priced. After our big waterfall day yesterday, we decided to take it much easier today. Blackberry Beach To get open…

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