NORCAL and Port Orford, OR

Trinidad, CA was just a one night stand, and on Saturday we drove another 145 miles up the coast, on Hwy 101, out of California and into Oregon.

Along the way we followed the coast and then exited Hwy 101 to drive thru Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. It was a real convienient side trip. We literaly just drove thru, well I got out a couple of times to take pictures. We exited Hwy 101 for about a half hour, drove slowly thru the redwoods, and the road lead back to Hwy 101. I'll add some pictures but to let you know, it's very hard to capture the height of these giant trees in the camera lens. It's not so hard to portray the girth of these monsters. The forest is damp (to say the least, it's actually soaking wet) so much so that many smaller trees are completely moss covered.

North of there we spotted a small hurd of Elk alongside the road. Then we pulled into a small stand along one of the creeks and picked up some smoked salmon for snacking.

Port Orford was our first stop in Oregon and we're spending time here at Evergreen RV Park. There is a harbor and marina here, used by the local fishermen. The beach consists of grasses, smooth dark gray sand, the absense of shells, large rocks, and big waves. Rock mountains jut sharply down into the ocean at both ends of this harbor, and they are each named ‘such and such Head’. The harbor is full of the giant boulders just like the California coast. Some are on the beach, some in shallow water, and some appear to be maybe 5 miles off shore. Waves crash and spray off of these rocks, and when the sun is out it’s especially beautiful.

Problem is that the weather forecast calls for rain, showers, and clouds for the next 10 straight days. We hope for as many bursts of sunshine and blue sky as we can get. They do pop thru, and when they do it is glorious.

Bud, the proprietor at Evergreen RV Park is a local fisherman and a very pleasant, down to earth man. With the bad weather they’ve had in the Pacific Northwest for the past 2 months, he’s been unable to fish, rather he's adapted and converted to crabbing for a living, at least for the short term.

Bud told us that dogs can run free on the beach here, and after supper we were invited to follow him and his family down to the dock. It was Saturday evening and we took our dogs out on the beach to run. I was just amazed with being there, overwhelmed to be standing down there at the shore, the beach, enormous rocks, distant heads, waves crashing, the sounds of it all, and Dixie running to her hearts content. This pacific coast north of San Francisco has simply blown us away with it's wonder.

Then Bud said ‘follow me’ to the other beach in town, he called it North Beach but on arrival we found the name was really Paradise Point. I guess he didn't want to set our expectations too high. It was just up the coast on the other side of ????? Head. There we stood high up on abrupt cliffs, 75 feet above the waves and sand, and we listened to the pounding surf and watched the sun go down. There were big clouds out over the ocean last night and they made for a fantastic sunset.

Today was Sunday and it rained or drizzled all day long, nonstop. We stayed inside and made plans to leave in the morning for Lincoln City, OR. We are stickin' right to the coast. Tomorrow we pass thru Newport, OR, and we‘ve been told that we must see Cannon Beach somewhere near there.

We had cable TV at Port Orford, but the Wi-Fi signal was so weak we weren’t able to surf the web, never mind post pictures out on the blog.