Friday - Before we pulled out this morning, I decided to get the laundry caught up, and sent Joe out to get a haircut, so we didn't get on the road until 11:10. When I went over to the office, next to the laundry, to check out, they had free coffee, and doughnuts for sale, so I indulged and bought breakfast for Joe and me. The laundry facility was nice, probably had 12 washers and dryers, but was a little pricey, $1.75 for washer, and $2.00 for dryer. I'm getting low on quarters. But jeans and sweatshirts fill my laundry bin up a lot quicker than shorts and t-shirts!
We drove past many acres of cranberry bogs on the 101, and even passed at Orchard Spray processing house. Along the way, we came upon the town of Langlois, with signs about it's "world famous hotdogs." We had never heard of that, but I googled it, and this is what I found: "Small town on the
Oregon Coast... Historically famous for it's cheese and currently famous for
Langlois Market's Hot Dogs with secret recipe mustard." We didn't stop, but maybe we should have.
Our highway had drifted away from the ocean, but we rejoined it at Port Orford. As our road curved away from the beach, the viewpoint was well marked, and we were happy to have views of the coastline again.
But it was really smoky. We were 55 miles from Brookings, and the smoke was heavy from then on.
This area was the Humbug Mountain State Park, also very smoky.
Joe was ready for lunch by the time we got to Gold Beach, so he pulled in at the first restaurant. This town is right on the Rogue River, and we passed an old shipwreck on the river. Looked like it had been there a while.
Our restaurant was part of a gift shop, museum, and a river trip office -- Jerry's Rogue River Jet Boat Rides. Joe is thinking this is in my future. The gift shop was really nice, and we left with a brochure about the boat rides.
We got to our campground, Harris Beach State Park, about 3:30. This campground is right on the ocean, but it was really smoky. The wind is blowing southwest, which brings the smoke right at us. Our eyes are burning and our noses are running -- almost like we have a cold. This is the Chetco Bar Fire, approximately 16 miles east of the campground now, but this campground is still on Stage 1 alert. Yesterday, a 10,000 feet smoke column developed on the southeast corner of the fire. The fire has now burned 131,197 acres and is 10 percent contained (as of yesterday). We have a few firefighters staying here in this campground, but the staging area for the fire is up on the Winchuck River Road.
While setting up our step rigging, Joe just about took a header out the door of the RV. Fortunately, he was able to keep from falling, but he stumbled quite a ways. We both need to get better at setting up our temporary step until he can get the other one lodged in place once we get parked for a while.
Joe said our campsite was a tough place to get into, and he had to jack the rear tires off the ground, but we do have blackberries right beside our campsite, so at least he had a reward for his work. And he's had a little snack. I'm sure he will have them picked bare before we leave next Wednesday.
Once we got set up, we stayed inside until about 7:30. There was a camp program about whales at 8:00, so we took a little walk before it. We saw these "sink waste disposal" containers around the tent camping areas, which we thought was a great idea, especially since we are so close to the coast. Keeps people from dumping their dish water directly on the ground.
The little ampitheatre is just right up a little ways passed our campsite. We were the first ones there, but eventually there were about 15-20 people in attendance. We had a slide program about the different kinds of whales, and we learned some things. The ranger also brought us up to date on the fire, so that was good. He said the smoke today and yesterday was as bad as it was on the day of the eclipse, but usually after 2-3 days, the wind changes and it clears up here, so we are all hoping for that tomorrow.
We only drove 108 miles as we leapfrogged down the Oregon coast. We are only 6 miles from the California state line so this is our last Oregon campground. We don't have a very busy agenda here, especially because of the smoke. We will probably do the jet boat ride, and I want to look for agates and seaglass on our beach, then we need to drive into Brookings and check it out. We just hope the smoke clears up!
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