Oregon - Days 9 & 10 - in the campground

Carl G. Washburne State Park, between Florence and Yachats

Monday, 9 and Tuesday, 10 May 2022

I made arrangements to stay 3 nights at this campground before realizing I couldn't get either a phone signal or a signal on my hot spot, and the state park doesn't have a wifi signal we can use, so I was really isolated.  Not a bad thing but inconvenient.

I wrote 5 blog posts and edited them, to bring it up to date to now.  Not that it did me much good because I couldn't post them or look anything up.  I wrote them in my computer's word processing program so I can transfer them to this blog site when I get a signal again.

This was a nice campground with enough room for us to walk in, when we could dodge other dogs.  There were several steep hills, and I insisted we include them in our walks, figuring both Gracie and I need to exercise our aged joints, instead of letting them stiffen up.  Dext can still bound up them; he's only 6.  

When I made reservations for this and the next 2 state campgrounds, I was surprised at how expensive they were.  In other states, places like this cost from less than $20 up to maybe $35 or so.  But these campgrounds started at about $35, though they offer discounts for veterans and impoverished seniors ($40,000 or less annual income).  When I asked the ranger about the prices, she said they don't get any general fund money at all, so all the state campgrounds operate on user fees alone.

We had rain off and on while we were here, and it got breezy and chilly.  The Pacific Ocean was just across the street, but I decided not to take the dogs because "the street" was US-101, and I didn't trust either of my dogs to cross the road quickly (you know, without stopping in the middle to smell something invisible on the asphalt - they both do that).  But it was easy to hear the ocean during the night, which was nice.

One of the volunteer camp hosts told me they'd had a mouse in their camper.  And in fact, 3 other campers near them had had 3 other mice.  Doesn't give me a reassuring feeling.

Several times, usually in the early mornings, Dext scented some critter.  Once I thought it might be a raccoon or possum because he stopped to stare intently up some tall trees.  That's as close to critters as I want to get - no mice in the house.

A few times, I heard Lily ack-ack-ing up in her perch on the overhead bunk.  Turns out she was interested in some Steller's Jays that were up in a tree next to her window.  She actually got some good shows out of the windows over my bed, too, so she was pretty well entertained.

Steller's Jay

And our campsite was the first one near the entrance so the dogs could see everybody come and go, because lots of other people trusted their dogs to go safely across the road.  So everybody got entertainment.