As planned, we left Riverbend in Washington September 29th, and from what we understand, not a day too soon. The weather had been changing with colder, wet weather and some snow in the higher elevations. In fact, a couple of days after we left, the passes we traveled got snow. We left in the rain and unfortunately it continued for more than a week. We picked up Oregon’s Rt. 30 west along the Columbia River through Astoria and out to the coast. Our first stop was Barview Jetty County Park on Tillamook Bay. During our stay at Barview, we took some day trips as far north as Seaside and as far south as Pacific City, taking in as many parks, scenic loops and coastal views as ‘we’ could find. (I say "we" and although we were both along for the ride, one of us was more interested in seeing "everything on the list" than the other. Between the miserable weather, the winding narrow roads and the continual stop ‘n go and in-and-out of the truck for photo ops, settling in at the end of the day was a welcome respite!) During our trip down the central coast, we stopped at most of the scenic points, but pressed on until we reached Coos Bay. We decided to make this our next stop for a few days, settling in at Mills Casino & RV Resort. Once again, we made some day trips and took a little time to hang out and relax. South of Coos Bay, our last stop on the Oregon coast was in Brookings-Harbor for one night, and the weather was finally got nice. Even so, the Oregon coast is certainly beautiful, even with the gloomy weather. We’ve seen the Northern Cal. coast so we kept moving down to Fortuna, where we stopped for the night and visited the nearby town of Ferndale. The Victorian homes and buildings have been so well preserved that the entire town is listed on the National Historic Register. After heading over to Highway 1 through Ft. Bragg, and then back over to the 101 through the wine country and bay area, we spent a night in the town of Marina, north of Monterey where we enjoyed a short visit with our buddy Mike. Some minor coach problems took us a bit out of the way east of I-5 for repairs, but then it was back to the coast to finish up our trek down to Southern Cal. We were disappointed as we checked the Morro Bay, Pismo Beach and Santa Barbara areas that were on our list for future workamping jobs and volunteer positions, so, with a little time to spare before our next job, we pressed on to the desert to Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley area where we’re chilling out for a few days (actually, ‘chilling’ might be the wrong word…..it’s still pretty toasty out here).
We’ve seen ethereal foggy views, rocky coastlines, rough pounding seas, historic lighthouses, quaint fishing villages, seals and sunsets, Victorian towns, and big trees. And since there are so many photos, I’ve split them into 4 albums; "Oregon Coast-North", "Oregon Coast-Central", "Oregon Coast-South" and "Cal Coast-North". Please be patient if some of them take a little longer to load. We’ll be settling into our position with California State Parks soon, so we’ll keep you posted …… be sure to check back!!