LOTS OF ELK.
Day 198 – It rained hard during the night and it was pretty muddy out this morning. The rain showers came & went all day long; it was really beautiful out after a shower when everything was glistening in the sunlight.
We had a 9 a.m. appointment back in Tillamook this morning, a 1-1/2 hour drive each way. On the way out of the campground we saw a huge elk eating grass by the side of the campground road. This started a day-long elk-picture-taking endeavor as we stopped many times in different locations to photograph them.
In Tillamook, they finished working on the car. We think the problem is solved now. We brought the Honda in fully loaded this time with kayaks and bikes and all the items we store in the back, for example: several 40-lb. bags of kitty litter, camping chairs, the tent, bike gear, and two filled propane containers, etc. They did the alignment and adjusted the camber to the way the vehicle is usually driven (since we’re on the road most of the time). Now we’re hoping that it will be properly aligned and there won’t be such quick damage to the rear tires. Time will tell.
We began the long drive back to the RV and decided to do some sightseeing along the way, taking pictures of the Blue Heron French Cheese Company’s heron sculpture, scenery, Cannon Beach/Haystack Rock, and the coastline viewpoints. These were all things we’d passed on the way from the last campground to the current campground, but the rain and clouds that travel day didn’t allow for any good pictures. And of course, we stopped at Riverside Fish ‘n Chips for our final perfect lunch there.
We returned to the RV and waited for the current rainstorm to stop, then went back out to drive around Fort Stevens State Park. The Park is very large. It’s the former site of Fort Stevens Military Reservation, which guarded the mouth of the Columbia River from the Civil War through World War II. One of the gun batteries was attacked by a Japanese submarine during WW2.
We drove the various campground roads, north and west of our campsite. One road took us to some sand dunes and a nice sandy beach where we visited the remnants of the shipwreck of the Peter Iredale, an English sailing ship that ran aground during a storm in 1906. We also drove through the former military base.
We drove north until the road ended where the Ocean met the Columbia River. Across the River was Washington State. In the distance we could see the bridge that crosses the Columbia River at Astoria.
We had a good day today in spite of the long drive to fix the Honda – and it’s done, YAAA! The high today was 58 degrees, later in the day when the wind died down and the sun won its battle with the clouds. Pixie was glad to have the sunlight in the bedroom.
