Winter has arrived a bit early in the PNW with harsh weather in October. No worries, we had planned to do a road trip south for November and December so off we go! First stop to visit our friend Shirley in Salem, Oregon. We enjoyed hanging out with Shirley at her house and doing dinner. The next day we headed to Harrison Beach State Park which is on the southern coast of Oregon. It was stormy and raining for much of the stay but we really enjoyed the wonderful scenery.
It was quite cold, but we are prepared for the weather so no problem. With all the wind and rain while tent camping, I went to the restroom one evening and realized that while I was prepared for the weather, I looked like a 3 eyed cyclopes monster.
We enjoyed some fantastic tide pooling and saw some cool star fish and anemones.
After Oregon, we headed to Salt Point State Park in Northern California, trying to quickly make time south to get into better weather. We really wanted to do some bird watching on the coast of California, so this was a stop we were looking forward to. While on our bird watching hike, we were inundated with a herd of sheep. We hiked along the coast and saw several new birds we have not seen before.
The weather was still quite severe and we were unlucky enough to weather an “atmospheric river” while tent camping at the park. We heard a loud crash in the middle of the night, only to realize the next morning that a large branch fell off a tree, dented the roof of the car and smashed the side view mirror off the car.
4 Comments
Nancy C. · November 27, 2021 at 3:03 am
SO sorry to hear of your weather mishaps…but know you guys are TUFF! Hope the rest of the southern sojourn is pleasant.
Karen Arndt · November 29, 2021 at 3:15 pm
Hi Nancy, we really have been enjoying Southern California and Arizona. Nice change in scenery!
Chris and Karen · November 28, 2021 at 5:04 pm
Maybe I can help remove the bulk of the dent on your way back north if you come this way. Glad that branch didn’t hit your tent with you in it!
That was quite the storm, though. Seemed like it would never end even though it was only a bit over 24 hours here. I think we had 6 inches of rain in that time, which is about a third of our annual rainfall!
Karen Arndt · November 29, 2021 at 3:17 pm
Hi Chris, we are glad it didn’t hit the tent either. I suspect we could have been hurt. We are still not sure about our travel plans north but would love to visit if the timing works out. If not, another time!
Comments are closed.