The Leyva's 1997 Summer Vacation:
The Pacific Northwest Coast

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 Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11

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Day the First . . .Friday: The Drive from Hell, part one
On Friday, August 22, we awoke bright and early and by 8 AM we were headed out the 5 fwy for a picturesque (NOT!) drive up the Great Valley. We made it to Redding in just over eight hours - not bad, considering we had to stop for gas and potty breaks every two to three hours! We ate dinner at our favorite restaurant - Chevy's. Sonjia highly recommends the scallop fajitas. The game plan was to head west on hwy. 299 to the town of Weaverville and spend the night in one of their hotels. Due to lack of communication all around, we did not make reservations. Not that it would have mattered much. On the way up the 5 we noted several classic cars headed in the same direction as us. This should have been a BIG clue! It seems the town of Weaverville hosts a classic car fair the weekend before Labor Day and every hotel in the area was booked. So. Glitch #1. On to plan 'B'.

Plan 'B' consisted of continuing on hwy. 299 out to the coast and look for either a campground or hotel/motel along the way. About a half hour west of Weaverville we came across a lovely little campground just off the highway. We set up camp and promptly fell asleep. Everything was blissful until a bunch of local teens (late teens/early twenties) hit the campground. They were loud. They were obnoxious. They blasted their stereo at top volume. At two AM we gave up and threw everything in the car and hit the road again. By four AM we were in the city of Arcata (home of Moonstone Mountaineering - Sonjia was not allowed to visit their outlet store) and by five AM we made it north on the 101 to Crescent City where we discovered glitch #2.

The original game plan was to spend three or four days hiking and camping in the Siskiyous, then head up to my mom's in Beaverton (just south west of Portland). When we were making the arrangement for this trip, we called the Siskiyou National Forest/Brookings Ranger station to inquire about the weather, camp regulations, etc. We clearly stated that we would be arriving the week before Labor Day. No problem, they replied, the weather's great that time of year. What they failed to mention that salmon season begins that week and that the Siskiyou and Klammath mountains have some of the best salmon runs around. So. No campgrounds anywhere from Arcata to Brookings were to be found. We even tried this remote campground just off a barely maintained dirt road in the Siskiyous. The only thing we found was this sign that said "dip", with the words "REALLY BAD" spray painted above it, that was posted about a foot before said dip. It was really a 4 - 6 inch drop where part of the road had washed away. And, to add insult to injury, you really couldn't see just how bad the dip was until you were right on top of it.

By this time it was seven AM, we were both tired, grumpy and hungry. We stopped off at a quaint restaurant for some of the best buttermilk pancakes we ever had and re-assessed the situation. We could continue up the coast along hwy 101 and try to find ANY campsite or hotel and crash for the rest of the day. Or, we could throw in the towel and head up to Robert's mom's house in Salem and do day trips from there. We decided to continue up the coast until we reached the hwy. that would take us to Salem. If we still hadn't found a place to crash, it was on to Mom's.

One of the places we had hoped to visit if we had the time was Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. It turns out that this was the campground we finally found a place to camp around noon. Better yet, we had the place all to ourselves. But first a nap of several hours or so was in order.
 

Day the Second . . . Saturday: Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area

After a wonderful nap, we headed out to explore the wonders of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. The Recreation area is comprised of two parts - the southern for dune buggies and the like, and the north for hiking, etc. These dunes are the most extensive on the west coast, extending 40 miles along the Oregon coast, with dunes reaching up to 30 feet in height. We stayed in the northern half at Eel Creek campground (no sign of eels) in the Umpqua Scenic Dunes and fell in love with the place.

The dunes are a popular area to backpack through and we saw a few hardy souls passing though. We decided to try the 5.0 round trip Umpqua Dunes Trail which lead to the beach, but one can become very disoriented out in the middle of the dunes. We settled instead for simply enjoying the peace and quiet. One of the most impressive sights is where the forest meets the dunes. Spectacular.

After a yummy dinner of smoked salmon and pasta Alfredo (who says you have to rough it camping?), we crawled into our tent for some well deserved sleep. A light drizzle began just as we were dropping off to sleep. We should probably mention that our tent is a "fair weather" one - translation, not good at keeping out the rain. So, we crawled back out of the tent and relocated it under some trees and arranged a tarp over it as a rain shield. It began to rain in earnest as we did this, but it was worth it. We spent the rest of the night snug and dry.
 

Day the third . . . Sunday: Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, Siltcoos Lake

The third day dawned bright and somewhat sunny. The rain had soaked everything overnight except our tent. Thank goodness for tarps and duct tape! A few miles north of the Umpqua Dunes is Siltcoos Lake, our next destination. The lake was named after a local Indian leader named Siltcoos, or so we were told. What an honor! We decided on the 2.6 round trip Waxmyrtle to the Sea Trail, an easy to moderate hike through second growth Sitka spruce and Douglas fir forest to a salt marsh and estuary which in turn leads to the beach and the ocean. The salt marsh and estuary are apparently very rare along the Pacific Coast. Numerous birds could be seen along the trail in addition to some rather annoying gnats! Still, it was wonderful to be able to experience the change from one ecological environment to another.

Hungry after our hike, we hit the road again, stopping off for supplies in Waldport (another tarp and a few miscellaneous things we forgot) and then lunch in Lincoln City (I think!). We decided that we really wanted some good clam chowder, so we stopped at a cute little seafood restaurant. I'm reasonable sure this place was straight out of the Twilight Zone! It took the hostess 10 minutes to figure out we were even there, then another few minutes to figure out that we needed to be seated. The food was OK, nothing spectacular, and they were out of clam chowder.

Our next destination was Cape Lookout State Park. From the 101, one heads west along Three Capes Scenic Loop Drive, so named because of the three capes (and three lighthouses) along its length. Cape Lookout State Park is very large and was surprisingly full. Our campsite was tucked away in a corner and was surrounded by blackberries. Yum! Now armed with two tarps, we set up camp in preparation for the nightly rain.
 

Day the Fourth . . . Monday: Cape Lookout State Park & the drive to Olympic National Park & Forest.
We awoke to, surprise!, a wet campsite again, but the day promised to be cool and sunny. The primary reason we chose this campground was for the hot showers! What a luxury after three days! Washing with soap and water at your campsite just doesn't compare. And yes, we used biodegradable soap. Sonjia had hoped to have some blackberries for breakfast, but all of the ripe ones were just out of reach. Before leaving we decided to walk a portion of the Netarts Bay Spit Hike. We didn't actually hike along the spit, but along the edge of the coastal rain forest where it met the beach.

A few years ago Sonjia discovered Tillamook and now makes a pilgrimage to it as often as she can. We stopped for, ahem, lunch of ice cream at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and picked up some cheese curd and other munchies for the ride up into Washington. The plan was to head north on the 101 all the way up to the Hoh Rain Forest in the Olympic National Park. Once over the river we stopped for gas in this tiny town called Seaport. While Robert got gas, Sonjia bought a small bunch of dahlias from a vendor for $1. Unfortunately, we missed the 101 and had to backtrack a bit before getting it right.

We made it to the Hoh Rain Forest at dinnertime and discovered that we had the campground pretty much to ourselves. On the way up the mountain we noticed that it began to drizzle about half way up. By the time we got to the campground it was raining lightly. At the visitor's center we learned that it can rain up to 133 inches in a year in the rain forest. By this time we had become experts in setting up a fairly rain-proof camp.
 

Day the Fifth . . . Tuesday: Olympic National Park - Hoh Rain Forest & Hurricane Ridge

Morning came and it was still raining - no big surprise in a rain forest! One of our favorite things to do in National Parks and Forest is to check out their visitor's center and any interpretive trails. Sonjia purchased a wonderful poster showing what a rain forest looks like and some of the plants and animals in it for use in her tours at the Southwest Museum in addition to a book on the plants and animals of the Pacific Northwest. We did both interpretive hikes - the Hall of Mosses (0.75 miles) and the Spruce Nature Trail (1.25 miles). Both are excellent examples of the biodiversity and evolution of a rain forest. We were treated to a sight of a huge Roosevelt elk lying in a meadow along the Spruce Nature Trail. Unfortunately we were out of film!

Next on our list of things to do was to head to the north side of the part to visit Hurricane Ridge and Heart o' the Hills. We had planned on three hikes: Heart of the Forest Trail through typical lowland forest with dense vegetation (2 miles one way); Hurricane Hill Trail (1.5 miles one) which gives one mountain peak vistas, a view of Port Angeles, the Straits of Juan de Fuca and wildflowers in early summer; and finally the Meadow Loop Trails stroll through a typical subalpine environment, thick with wildflowers in summer and the occasional black-tailed deer and the Olympic marmot. Since our original game plan was to spend all of our time in the warm Siskiyous, we were unprepared to spend any more than a few hours up in this cold subalpine environment, so we had to content ourselves with a quick visit.

Since it was too cold (40degrees at 2 PM) for us to camp overnight at Heart o' the Hills, we headed back down the mountain in search of a place to camp. After dinner at Taco Bell in Port Angeles, we continued south on the 101. We thought that Lake Cushman State Park was a good candidate until we attempted to drive to it. The unimproved dirt road was full of ruts and washboards - OK for 4 wheel drive vehicles like my new Cherokee but not so good for Robert's Mustang. We had to give up the attempt a mile up the road and head back.

We stopped at the Skokomish Indian Reservation & Casino to pick up some beautiful silver earrings of Bear for Sonjia and a pendant of Raven (?) for her grandmother's birthday present. After driving for what seemed forever, we finally hit upon Millersylvania State Park, located just off the 5 fwy south of Olympia. It was a quaint, but typical, state park campground and pretty well occupied for a Tuesday night. For once it didn't rain overnight.
 

Day the Sixth . . . Wednesday: Millersylvania State Park & the drive to Portland
One of the reasons we chose Millersylvania State Park was because they had hot showers. We both figured that, while Sonjia's parents love them both dearly, they'd really prefer us clean and smelling nice. After a nice, hot shower we hit the road to Portland.

Many people are under the misconception that all the cities in the Pacific Northwest are fairly perfect, with little to no crime or bad areas. While this is somewhat true, there are parts that can be rather scary. Since Millersylvania State Park is only two hours from Portland, we had several hours to kill before meeting Sonjia's parents at their apartment. Powell's beckoned. All we had was the address to Powell's and we couldn't find the map of Portland under all the camping gear. So we ended up on the other side of the river from it in a really, well, seedy part of town. The car needed gas and we had to use the restrooms, so we pulled into the first gas station we saw. While they had gas, they also had two inch thick bullet-proof glass surrounding the cashier and no bathrooms. When we finally found Powell's a few minutes later, our crisis was solved.

What is Powell's? Powell's is the ultimate bookstore. It takes up a whole block and is three stories of books. There's even a technical & scientific book store across the street. We limited ourselves to $25 each and two hours. It wasn't nearly enough! Robert bought several used copies of science fiction books he's always wanted to read and Sonjia got a book on Cedar & the Indians of the Northwest Coast.

We finally dragged ourselves out of Powell's and headed to Sonjia's parents. In honor of Sonjia's grandmother's birthday, Sonjia's birthday, her parents upcoming 20^th anniversary, and our visit, we had a HUGE Italian meal at Sonjia's aunt and uncle's house. There was lasagne, pasta, salad, etc., etc., all made by Sonjia's dad. Yummy!

Day the Seventh . . . Thursday: the OMSI
Sonjia, in case you didn't know, is a museum freak. She loves them. Robert is into science and technology stuff, so OMSI, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry was a logical place to go. Sonjia's grandmother purchased tickets to "the Giants of the Gobi" dinosaur exhibit for all of us. The exhibit was set up like a dinosaur dig and showed several different types of dinosaurs and the methods for excavation. Afterward we saw "Mars" in the planetarium narrated by Patrick Steward of Star Trek: the Next Generation fame.
 
 
 

Day the Eighth . . . Friday: the drive to Salem
We spent most of Friday sleeping in and goofing off before heading down the 5 to visit Robert's parents in Salem. Maritza, Robert's sister, made us a scrumptious Moroccan chicken & lemon dish for dinner.
 

Day the Ninth . . . Saturday: the Japanese Gardens
Tucked away in Portland's Washington Park is the Japanese Gardens. It is not only an authentic Garden, but one of the largest in the U.S. Robert's mother, Irma, joined us for a pleasant afternoon stroll through the Garden. The gardens were lovely, full of quiet beauty and serenity. As it is located on the top of a hill, there are wonderful panoramic views of Portland and the surrounding area. For dinner, Robert's sister joined the three of us for a delicious dinner at a restaurant featuring the cuisine of India in Salem.
 

Day the Tenth . . . Sunday: the drive from Hell, part two
Basically the same as day one, but in reverse! Robert's family saw us off in the morning and then it was several hours of the wonderful (I don't THINK so) scenery along the 5. We hit a bit of traffic at one point about 4 hours from home - a very bad accident involving a big rig and several cars. Fortunately for us, it was on the other side. When we gassed up at the next town, the attendant said that the accident had happened three hours earlier and would probably take another three to clean up. We finally arrived home at 1 AM in the morning.
 

Day the Eleventh . . . Monday: We went back to work and rested!