We crossed over into Oregon and have worked our way up the Oregon Coast.  We had a lot of rain but also some sunshine. Some. Now we head inland. This is where we do some zig zagging and back tracking. There is no way to see all the things we want to see with out back tracking. I use the trip planner on Good Sam, plugging in all the places we want to see, and it calculates the quickest route. So it may look crazy but it is planned.

When the weather is bad, the crashing waves are spectacular:

Shore Acres State Park:

Cape Arago State Park:

Coos Bay:

Oregon Dunes.  Kids, I asked dad if we could put the Lexus in four-wheel drive and go out on the dunes.  He said no.  Ok, that didn’t really happen.  It may not look like it in the picture but some of the dunes were huge!

Typical gray and rainy day on the coast.  Maybe the weather will be better as we go inland

We are learning that when in the Pacific Northwest we cannot let the rain stop us from seeing the sites.

We hiked down to Agate Beach in Patrick’s Point State Park in light rain.  It was gnarly.

Treasures from the beach:

Elk in Redwoods National Park:

Road to Gold Bluffs Beach.  No rv’s allowed

We didn’t stay here but this is Gold Bluffs Beach.  Would be a great place to stay if you were tenting it or in a truck/camper

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park  We didn’t stay here because we wanted hook ups during rain storm but this was one of the most beautiful campgrounds we’ve seen.  And we’ve seen a few.

Finally, one of the places I really wanted to go was Fern Canyon. The gate was closed due to rains which meant hiking a mile along the road if you wanted to go there. The rain stopped in the afternoon so we went for it. The hike doesn’t usually involve hiking through so much water but because of the recent rain, the creek was higher. It didn’t stop us.

Not going any further.

• 
• This is such a beautiful area!  We highly recommend a visit if you’ve never been here.

its been almost 40 years since we’ve visited this part of California. That was when Travis was a baby and he slept all day and cried all night. I think we were too traumatized to come back.

Here are some pics from Avenue of the Giants in Humboldt Redwoods State Park:

Two and a half mile to Drury/Chaney Grove. Highly recommend this if you are driving Avenue of the Giants:

Trinidad, Ca:

We are hunkered down in an RV park for the next few days due to a storm that’s coming through. We may be doing more book reading and movie watching rather than hiking and site-seeing. I guess we better get used to this since we are headed to Oregon and Washington.

We left home on Sunday morning and arrived at Petaluma by 4:30 p.m.  Stayed in a casino parking lot for the night. Many casinos offer free overnight parking. Can’t beat free. Here are a few pics from our travels on highway 128 to the coast. Here’s a few pics from the drive:

Pacific Star Winery:

MacKerricher State Park where we spent the night:

Some things are just like home. Watching Tucker while eating deconstructed chicken lettuce wraps.

We were both a bit nervous about starting out on this trip. I think we were afraid we wouldn’t like it as much as our last big trip. But after only two nights away from home we are just loving the adventure of seeing new sites!