A DAY OF DRIVING.
Day 176 – It was wet and muddy out this morning. We had paid for this campground through tonight, but we don’t know where to go tomorrow. On top of that, the heavy rains showed us a weakness in the skylight over the shower by giving us a steady drip of rain into the shower stall. Well, it could be worse; I mean, if you had a leak wouldn’t you want it to be in your shower? So Rob spent some time studying up on skylight leaks in RV’s; I looked at the availability of campsites where we are, so we could just pay for a couple more nights here, while Rob fixed the shower.
Rob removed the skylight to find out where the leak was, and found it was all wet and moldy; he made a list of items he’d need from the hardware store. He also found that he would need several days of warm, dry weather to allow any sealants to dry. He couldn’t begin working on the shower immediately due to the dampness from our recent downpour, and because the temperatures were too cold. I discovered there were two available campsites at our campground for the next two days AND that no more rain was predicted until Friday night at the earliest, temperatures were due to warm up before the weekend.
We needed to find a place to stay on the weekend. Our current campground was fully booked. We departed in the morning, first to the hardware store to get the items Rob needed for his repair, to a Post Office to mail a friend some books, and then north to check out a series of National Forest Service and State Park campgrounds along the coast. This was not a sightseeing trip, so we have very few pictures. The one we did take follow:
We found 11 campgrounds that were open, mostly State Parks, and all but three National Forest Service Campgrounds were not open until May. In addition to the three NFS campgrounds and the State Parks, we looked at a private campground at a Port in Florence on the Siuslaw River, a county Park in Florence, and drove by a private oceanfront campground south of Yachats. Every State Park was almost completely booked (if not totally booked) for the month! And it’s not summer yet. We ruled out the three forest service campgrounds that were open – two were completely booked and one was for dune riders – no thanks. As we’ve traveled north. we have found that there are increasingly less availabilities at campgrounds. If this continues, we may change our plans for traveling up the coast into Canada and spending the summer on Vancouver Island. Surely inland destinations will have less crowds?
We stopped in Florence for a good lunch at ICM Restaurant. We split a Crab Sandwich and a Caesar Salad with Crab (fresh Dungeness Crab is big here and we intend to take full advantage of it). On the way back to the RV, Rob stopped at an RV Dealership & Parts Store and found the final item he needed to begin work on the shower leak.
When we went to book the next two nights at this campground, both sites had been reserved. Sigh. So, we have to move on tomorrow morning, and Rob will begin the shower work at our next campsite, hoping to get done a couple of days before the next rain. In the end, after reviewing our options, we made reservations for the next 4 nights at the Port in Florence, followed by 4 nights at the County Park in Florence, and ending up with 4 nights at the private oceanfront campground. During that time we’ll have to decide whether to continue this battle for campsites or revamp our trip. The high today was 53 degrees.
For more detailed information about Umpqua Lighthouse State Park, click here.