Cape D Ilwaco WA

Isn’t it funny how things turn out? 

Last winter we applied to Washington State Parks because one guy we met said it’s a great place to volunteer. It was a bit of a hassle; we had to go to Phoenix to get finger-printed, then snail mail our application. Then we waited and waited some more, but heard naught. Bob got a little anxious, I think, in accepting the gig at Lone Pine Ranch. When we finally did start getting calls we had to decline. SO in addition to the Oregon State Park system we also revisited Washington State Parks. I must have left a voice mail because on our way from Valley of the Rouge State Park in Oregon to Brookings we received a call from Ranger Tom at Cape Disappointment State Park. Cape D is in southern Washington so travel expenses wouldn’t be too high. It sounded great! We accepted right away and said we would arrive on August 6^th.

This post comes to you from Cape D. We’d been here over a week before we had rain. 

This is our camp host site on a sunny day

 

But as usual I’m a little ahead of myself. Let’s talk about Julie and Doug’s visit to the ranch, our stay at Mike and Denise’s and our week in Oregon first.

Julie and Doug visit the ranch...

Julie, for those of you who don’t know, is my best friend from grammar school. She lived across the street from me in Pleasanton and we’ve been friends since kindergarten! She and her husband, Doug visited us at the ranch the weekend after 4^th of July. They stayed two nights, we had a picnic lunch at Blue Lake and enjoyed a couple of tasty BBQ dinners. We hung out at the river and watched Cinder play in the water with Doug. Julie and I also did the walk (hike) up the canyon with the dogs.

Almost ran into some cattle on the way to Blue Lake.

Lunch time with Cinder?

Doug and Cinder

Fun at the river

Now more on our stay in Janesville…

Let’s see…Bob got the stomach flu and Foxie was chased by a deer. Our grey 2 tank backed up and Bob lost a few more pounds. When I put it like that it sounds pretty bad. It wasn’t (for me anyway J) Really it was a time for us to adjust from a six month plan to no plan. I can’t think of a better haven than with Mike and Denise to do it. Many thanks to them!

Our time in Oregon…

We left M and D’s early on Tuesday July 30^th for Valley of the Rouge State Park. About halfway there we noticed smoke in the air. As we went north it thickened. When we arrived it was bad. After getting set up I received an email from the Oregon park system advising us about the poor air quality. We could have cancelled our reservation then but we didn’t have the energy to pack and go to another park. Besides we had some shopping to do at Costco in Medford. Bob needed new pants! He had apparently lost 20 pounds working at the ranch!

We spent one night at an RV park in Brookings and was reminded why we are leaning more and more away from those. As Howard of RV-Dreams.com would say, RV parks don’t have the “it” factor. We were much happier with our stays at Oregon’s state parks, Cape Blanco and Humbug. Our site at Cape Blanco was in the trees so we had to rough it with no satellite TV reception, but we enjoyed the beach and surrounding areas. We had a great site at Humbug, very close to the beach trail with lots of sun.

A look at Cape Blanco State Park - Oregon

A trail through the forest

On our way to the beach…

Looking north

Looking south…

At the beach!

Foxie’s looking good!

Now for a look at Humbug State Park - Oregon

That’s our rig as seen from the highway at the bridge

The trail to the beach

The trail back to the campground!

Another view of the campground

Now for a little on Cape Disappointment State Park - Washington

We put in 20 hours total per week. Two hours each, five days a week, are spent cleaning empty camp sites and picking up litter. We are also available to answer questions at anytime. The Washington State Park system really wants its volunteers to enjoy their stay and appears to be a great place to workamp! So far so good. :-)

Benson Beach at Cape Disappointment... More to come next post!