Inland

Day 9. Wednesday, April 29.


View Harvey's Route in a larger map

We decided to explore Sunset Bay a bit more as it was so beautiful and this was our only night on the Oregon Coast. We went back down to the beach and found a trail head to two more parts, Shore Acres and Cap Arago, to the south. We never made it either as the trail dumped us into an empty cove and never started up again. That we could find at least. We still enjoyed ourselves and saw some cool, Oregonian stuff.






We departed Sunset Bay in the late morning and had about five hours of driving ahead of us. The weather was a little rough at times, but not as bad as the previous day. We stopped for lunch in Newport, which means...



This place dioesn't even compare to the Sierra Nevada brewery, but they had some great kobe burgers and they specialize in delicious ales, so I ain't complainin'. Plus we got this goin' on now:



After that we drove up the coast a bit more and eventually cut inland toward the Wilamette Valley. We eventually landed in our campground right on the Wilamette River at Champoeg State Park (pronounced Champ-oeg). However you pronounce it, Oregon gets a big fat 'A' for their state parks. They're clean, well maintained, spacious, and they have a great volunteer system. They also have cabins and yurts to rent at a lot of their parks. Plus they don't allow smoking in the showers. I can't say I've ever been in a shower that has a no-smoking sign in it until now. Kudos, Oregon!

At dusk, Pops and I took a stoll around the park while Casey blogged. The Wilamette Valley is wine country so the scenery changed from rocks and pines to rolling hills and meadows.




Day 10 will hopefully take us to some wineries and finally into Portland.