TRAVEL DAY
From: Harborview Inn & RV Park, Garibaldi, OR.
To:Fort Stevens State Park, Hammond, OR.
Day 197 – It rained last night and hailed this morning, at 7:35 a.m. it was 47 degrees out. We were supposed to be out of this campground by 11 a.m. but supposedly couldn’t check in at our next campground until 4 p.m. Our drive was only going to be about an hour and a half. We were wondering what we were going to do in between check-out and check-in times. Finding a parking space when you are in a RV towing a car really narrows down where you can go.
We decided to take our time, leave when we were ready, and hopefully when we got to the next campground, they’d just let us go to our campsite early. Otherwise, we’d just wait for hours in the parking lot at the ranger’s station.
We departed Garibaldi at 11:30 a.m. We liked it here and would definitely stay here again if we were in the area. We thought, to kill time, we could run a few errands on the way to Fort Stevens, but we never saw the particular stores nor room in parking lots for us. The drive was like our other Oregon coastal drives – Highway 101 along the ocean or winding through forested hills – beautiful scenery except that it was raining hard at times and even hailed again. In some places the fog was dense on the coast. Much of the journey was through places we’d never been before. Luckily, tomorrow we have to take the Honda back to Tillamook to have the remainder of the work on it completed. We will get another chance to see the new scenery and possibly stop along the way to see it better. IF the weather is good, that is.
We arrived at Fort Stevens State Park at 12:55 p.m. We stopped at the ranger’s station, and asked if we could check in early. He checked to see if the campsite we’d reserved was occupied and it wasn’t. He let us go ahead. YAAA! We’d never been to the Park before, not even to scope out the campground. We did a good job picking a campsite, sight unseen. You never really know what you’re going to get. The campground was HUGE with 15 loops of campsites. When we reserved almost 3 weeks ago, most of the campsites were already booked. Our choices were limited because our stay would be over a weekend. We were happy to find that our site was nice. Although by the main campground road, it was separated from the campsite next to us on one side by bushes and a very large tree that ended up being so close to the RV, we almost couldn’t get the dining room slide open. The site was fairly level with some shade and some sun. It was long enough for the RV and the Honda if we parked as far in as we could get and if we turned the car sideways. The campground was nicely tree’d and well-maintained, especially considering the size of the Park. Across the street from our campground was a very large KOA Kampground. It was amazing to think that both these large campgrounds could be filled up on weekends and during the summer!
Our site was #109 in Loop D. We had electric and water hook-ups; there was a large dump station in the campground. We let the girls out first and we all had lunch, then we set up camp. Because it’s only a Tuesday, we could see only one other camper from our site, and they were campground hosts. The peace & quiet will change as we get closer to the weekend.
After the girls had settled in and we had set up camp, we drove into Warrenton and ran a couple of errands. It rained a little then, but the rain now was intermittent. The high today was 53 degrees. Tomorrow we’ll be busy most of the day, driving from here to Tillamook and back again, but it will be an excuse to have lunch at Riverside Fish ‘n Chips again. Meanwhile, while we are here in the campground we will enjoy looking at these big, beautiful trees.