Finne's Follies: November 2020

For a variety of reasons, which I won't go into, we decided to alter our travel plans a bit and head to California sooner than we had first planned. Just to be clear, one of those reasons was NOT because we especially love California. Still, we thought it best to arrive and settle in before the election.

And so, we dropped all of our Washington coast reservations and made our first major stop in Seaside, Oregon. The coast of the Northwestern U.S. is one of the most beautiful and stunning coastlines I've ever seen. We love walking along the beaches, which are smooth and deep. Unfortunately, the weather is so chilly just about all year long that walking is all you can really do without a wetsuit or a child's constitution, neither of which we have. Getting in the water deeper than the ankles isn't going to happen. It turns out that the average temperatures in August (our last visit) and October are about the same--mid 60's. Still, the views are amazing and it's always calming to just sit and watch and listen to the surf. We did some re-exploring of Seaside -- it's our second time there. After strolling along the boardwalk, we had dinner at Mo's, a seafood chain in the area. Their clam chowder is fabulous!

Outdoor dining at Mo's

No way I'm passing up clam chowder!

We had five days in Seaside. Though we wanted to extend our stay, the campground was full and last-minute changes were not possible. Astoria is a little bit north of Seaside--about a twenty minute drive. We love that quaint town, too, and made a day trip to visit it while we were near.

Cargo ships in the harbor at Astoria

Astoria

In a store window in Astoria. Halloween, anyone?

From Seaside, we went down the coast to Florence, which is about mid-state, and stayed there almost a week. The Thousand Trails park we stayed in, South Jetty, was a hop, skip, and a jump from the Oregon Dunes National Recreational Area. One of of the nicer days, we made the short drive over and parked the car where we didn't have to pay a fee. After an arduous climb over the dunes to the sea, we discovered it was a short walk around the dunes back to where we'd parked the car. It's all good-- we got some unintended exercise in the process. There wasn't too much else to do in South Jetty, and since our RV park had absolutely NO sites with sewer, we decided to leave early.

Coming down over the hill into Florence, Oregon

Our lovely but sewerless site in Florence

Our next stop was Russian River RV Park in Cloverdale, CA. The only sites here were 30 amp and no sewer. Again! And again we left early for our next planned stop in Hanford, CA, to visit some "shoestring" relatives (and good friends) of Mark's--his son-in-law's parents. We were there just a couple days, but had a very nice visit with Phil and Judy. They treated us to a delightful dinner at a restaurant near the Sequoia National Park, called The Gateway. Check out this view from the outdoor patio where we dined. The food was pretty good, too!

Phil & Judy, Me and Mark

In Hanford we generally stay at the Kings County Fairgrounds. It's first-come-first-serve, but we've so far not had any trouble getting a spot there. Sites are all nice and level with 50 amp full hookups. For a short stay, the price is reasonable ($30/night).

All the changes we made to our schedule put us in Acton (where we spend most of our California time) a full three weeks early. We're here in California now until the end of the year, bouncing back and forth between three Thousand Trails parks. I'll write about that next time.

Safe travels and God Bless!