Monday, August 26, 2013

Last Day on the Road - Onto Portland

After six nights of camping and beautiful drives we arrived at a crummy campsite in Newport, Oregon at around 11 am on Friday. We were supposed to stay there and head into Portland on Saturday morning. We took a look around and decided we would rather just head to Portland and skip out on that site. It was a huge unappealing site which Tom referred to as "cattle herding for humans". We both agreed, so I called Heather to ensure that an early arrival would be okay. She said that would be just fine so we decided that is what we would do. We first stopped in Newport to check out the views and try out Rogue Brewery. It was a great lunch and brewery stop before the three hour drive into Portland.
 











When we arrived at Heather's we first unloaded the mess that was our little rental car. It was nice to be able to put it into her garage to sort out later. We immediately showered in warm and free showers before we took the opportunity to squeeze all over that little RJ. What a wonderful meeting it was!





After six nights, seven days on the road we were excited to be at a home base. We spend the rest of our trip here and it was wonderful.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Mueth Cali/Oregon Trip: Day 5 in Humbug Mountain State Park

After an incredible week in California it was time to start heading into Oregon. From the redwoods it was back out to the coast for a coastal drive all the way up to near Portland. The coastal redwoods were pretty beautiful as well but not quite as magnificent as where we stayed.

We stopped in Crescent City and walked up to see the lighthouse. Tom was not impressed. We walked around the little "island" lighthouse and we were on our way. It was a chilly and foggy morning on the coast. 




We saw a far more beautiful lighthouse on the coast near the Oregon/California border. We didn't go to this lighthouse but the view was beautiful.


We entered Oregon really early on Thursday morning. Nothing too monumental about that, but the Oregon coast is a bit different than the Califonia coast. 
After a bit more driving we stopped for lunch on the beach. It was a beautiful little spot. We were quickly introduced to how windy the Oregon coast is. As we were eating I noticed a small mountain off the coast in the distance and realized that was our campsite for that night. We were closer than we thought!







We arrived at the park and our campsite much earlier than expected. We had camp set up and ready to go by noon so we hit the trail. 



Humbug Mountain was a great trail with a pretty steady incline for 3 miles. The coastal views were beautiful as was the lush green trail. We were happy to get to camp early enough to hike before dinner. 










it was so green and lush everywhere on the trail. 

At the summit we set up my camera to take some pics of us... it kept snapping so we kept posing :) The ocean is behind us but you can't see it in the pictures.




After we hiked back down we walked to the beach connected to our campsite. It was, AGAIN, soooo super windy. The beach was beautiful though and Humbug goes straight up from the sand which is unlike anything I have ever seen.
Tom walking to the beach...Humbug Mountain to the left


On the beach with Humbug Mountain behind us

Humbug Mountain from town
After we got showered up we went into Port Orford for dinner. Port Orford is a little fishing town with a couple seafood restaurants. We went to Crazy Norwegians and had some really good dinner. Just a quick night on the town and then it was back to camp.