SEARCHING FOR CAMPGROUNDS THAT AREN’T FULL.
Day 179 – It rained last night; plenty of puddles this morning. It rained on and off today which made it a good day to take a long drive to scope out campgrounds for later in April. We drove all day and it was new territory for us. Also, with the rain coming and going it made it very pretty out – the bark of the trees was wet which made them almost black, contrasting with the new growth of the leaves, flowers, and branches. The highway glistened from the moisture and mist was rising from the road and from roofs of houses. The waves were crashing below and when the sun did shine on the water, it sparkled.
We looked for whales but didn’t see any. We pulled out on several scenic overlooks and joined the other people staring out at the sea. The farther north we go, the more likely it will be for us to see whales. We stopped at Cape Foulweather – LOVE that name – and took pictures during a break in the showers.
Our campground scouting was productive. We’d had high hopes for another Port campground – we really like the Port we’re currently staying at – and the pictures on the computer were great for the new Port campground. Um…..you cannot always believe the pictures of things on the web! Glad we went to see this one before booking! (Which is one reason we always like to scout out a campground before making a reservation; it’s better to know what you’re getting in advance.) As we moved north, State Parks continued to be booked far in advance; Forest Service campgrounds were either closed until mid-May or the ones that were open were located in the dunes, popular with the sand dune riders, no thanks. We’d decided the only way to beat the overcrowding issue was to focus on private campgrounds and those can range from very dumpy, almost dangerous places to extremely overpriced fancy resorts to large parking lots with hundreds of RVs lined up side by side. Still, we did find several and made reservations taking us through the rest of Oregon by May 1. Obviously, the farther out you look, the more chance things aren’t already booked. We got a second campground overlooking the ocean and got an oceanfront campsite, a campground on a river and got a riverfront site, and a campsite near Astoria and the Columbia River Gorge at Fort Stevens State Park.
We’ve already looked ahead into May and the summer months for availabilities in Washington and Vancouver Island. That’s scary as many parks are already fully booked. This far in advance, we will just have to take our chances and grab what we can without looking at the sites and campground in advance. And then there’s the ferry crossing from Washington to Vancouver Island; I wonder how booked up that is in advance……
We ate out twice today, which was nice. We really don’t eat out that much when camping – unless we’re in an area where something is special (like here, local crab and fish) or in a big city where there are lots of restaurants. Today & tomorrow we’ll be treating ourselves. Lunch was nothing to write home about, so I won’t write home about it. LOL. Dinner was within walking distance from the RV, a little building on the pier that specialized in Crab Chowder. We each had a large bowl plus garlic bread, and the best part was eating it outside overlooking the birds on the river. The high today was 58 degrees.