South along the ocean from Manzanita to Florence Oregon

This is one of our very favourite drives. It frequently is stormy and obscured with mist. Captain Cook on his last voyage, sailed north along this coast in the dreary month of March when the winds blow storms onshore, and the glories of the capes and rivers are obscured by cold damp fog. He named one of the most gloriful "Cape Foul Weather" which tells us all. The cape in this series of photos he named Cape Perpetua.

Manzanita, Nehalem and Wheeler on the northern Oregon Coast.

We had one afternoon, one whole day and one half day to spend at the beach . We decided to take a tour through the area, as we used to own property here and have many fond memories. For various reasons we have not been back here for about 10 years. 

First Day at the Beach

Leaving Camp 18, Flossie is ready to find that beach!

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Going to the Coast

Hi everyone,

After a packed few days in Portland visiting, medical appointments and family connections, we left the campground in Wilsonville and wove our way westward through busy traffic towards the Oregon Coast.  Half an hour west of the city, we started climbing over the Coastal Range. These are similar to the mountains on Vancouver Island in that they were made by subduction of the coastal plate under the continent. This explains why they are younger and smaller than the inland ranges. This part of the coastal range tops out around 1600 feet.

GETTING THERE and all that jazz...

Hi folks and welcome to the new blog,

We had joint purpose for this trip, the main one was to get my cataracts assessed by the ophthamologist in Portland. Using that we added on several other events: a visit to granddaughter Jamie and her fiance Chris. A meeting with my grad school friends. Shopping in Oregon which is a sales tax free state. And since this is our first trip using our new camper "Abby", we thought we should give her a fair trial down the coast and over the mountains and across the desert.

Our New Trip

Hi everybody!!!

Rick and I are off on our latest adventure, and you are all invited to come along. Our itinerary will take us south to Portland Oregon, where I have an appointment with the ophthamologist to discuss cataracts (mine!). After that, we spend a few more days in town using the opportunity to shop the sales in this tax free State, and then we visit with our granddaughter Jamie and her fiance Chris. After that, off we roll, west to the Pacific Ocean, then south about halfway down the state. We turn east and cross the Cascade Mountains to camp at Le Pine in Eastern Oregon.  We continue east  across a landscape of mountains and desert, turning north to the magnificent Wallowa Mountains. The last hop is onto Interstate 90 and a return to Bellevue (in Seattle Washington) where we visit with my youngest son Martine.  This will be our first trip trying out "Abby" our new camper. (She is named after Alberta where she was "born").

Hope you enjoy the scenery. The first few days might be damp, but after that, the forecast is for constant sunshine.

See you all in Portland tomorrow!

Barbara Rick and Flossie the amazing travelling Scottish Terror

Home at last

Sorry, we didn't post immediately, but we arrived home extremely tired. The ride down the mountains and the smoke from the wild fires, along with a ferocious electical storm took a lot out of us oldies. Today we are watching on TV as they evacuate people from Quesnel, which is where we camped just a few nights ago. The entire central and northern part of the province is under heavy smoke, as is the City of Vancouver. Thankfully here on Gabriola, the air is clean and the skies only slightly hazy. We are very grateful for getting home all in one piece. It turned out to be more of an adventure than we anticipated, and nothing really turned out the way we planned, but we loved it all and enjoyed sharing it with all of you. Now that we have seen the far north of our country, we are going to do future exploring in the Fraser Valley and northern Vancouver Island, places that we can access in a day or two. In the meantime, we have lots to catch up on at home, and preparations are already in the works for the departure to Mexico the end of October.

Thanks to all our friends and family for hanging in with us through the Northern Excursion of 2018.

Barbara Rick and Flossie the Intrepid Scottish Traveller.