July Camping: Champoeg State Park

This month, we spent two nights at Champoeg (pronounced "sham-POO-eee") State Park and Heritage Area, just 30 minutes south of us on I-5, right along the Willamette River.  The park is open to camping year-round, and even though all the river-side spots get reserved very quickly, I managed to snag an exterior site about two months in advance.

The state park covers a large area, with several day-use spaces, picnic tables and a huge disc golf course throughout.  Originally the homeland of the Tualatin "Kalapuya" tribe, the site became a town in the 1830's of fur trappers and French-Canadians coming west, and eventually became the site of the first declared provisional government in the U.S. along the Pacific coast.  In the 1890's however, a massive flood from the river wiped out the entire settlement and it was never rebuilt, though you can see artifacts in the on-site museum that were recovered in later years.

The park has several hiking and biking trails, a small gift shop at the museum, and even a grave site of an original settler there, though we weren't able to find it.  There are RV sites with full hook-ups (or just without sewer, which is what we had), as well as tent camping and yurt sites as well.  All spots had decent privacy and were pretty large in size, as we have camped on sites where you're basically looking in the windows of the camper next to you.

Our site had electrical and water hook-ups and backed up to an open meadow which made for a great sunset spot.  We had virtually zero shade however, which made the 88-degree days seem worse (thankful for the trailer's AC).  Our son got to ride his bike around the paved loop, played with other kids and enjoyed the on-site playground.  You can buy ice ($1) or a bundle of wood ($5) from the camp host, and there were several park rangers patrolling the park.  We found a dock on the river, but due to the boating traffic, we were unable to swim from it for safety reasons.  

Considering the park is so close to home, open year-round and only $35/night, we definitely hope to be back later this year, albeit for a shadier spot, maybe in the Fall.  Next time, we'll try to find a good place to swim (or float), which we were told we could find in the nearby town of Newberg.  Our son gave Champoeg 4 out of 5 stars, so that's a plus!

Happy Glamping!

 

Garden Updates: getting some harvests!

Just shy of our first month into summer, and we're starting to see some harvests.  I've pulled about 3 sandwich bags full of strawberries (freezing for smoothies), 5 zucchinis of various sizes (I swear, they sneak up on me!), 4 heads of lettuce, some basil, green onions and a couple of small cherry tomatoes.

This week, I pulled the remaining lettuce heads that had bolted from last week's record-setting heat wave (we got up to 116F on June 28th), and replaced them with some new baby starts and a new bed of sweet corn with a goal for harvest in the fall.  (I got sucked in to a little spree at our local nursery which is currently having a 50% off sale on all veggie starts.)  We also got the baby artichokes into the ground *fingers crossed* and ran some string from the bean tipi to the chain-link fence, as I grossly underestimated how far the vines would want to grow.  😂 

Other than some slugs in the strawberry bed (hooray for beer traps!), I have been pleasantly surprised at the lack of pest issues so far.  There has been some minor munching on the lower-hanging lettuce leaves and nibbles on the zucchini nubs, but otherwise, there haven't been any major issues.  Even during last week's heat wave, I just kept watering everything in the evening (after the beds were in the shade), and they seemed to bounce back just fine.  I only had minor sun-scald on the jalapenos, and some leaves here and there, so overall, we have been pretty lucky.

I'm super excited about how things are going, and almost wish I had set a few more beds so I could plant more!  I have also been stocking up on canning jars as I find them, now having five cases of quart jars, three cases of pint jars, and a case of half-pint jars for when I get up the courage to make jams.

Coming soon are some small jalapenos (albeit with some sun-scald), basil, cucumbers, apples, pears, chives, and of course, more zucchini!  Since the heat wave, the weather has been a comfortable high-80's (slightly muggy), so here's hoping for the same consistency through August and September.

Cheers and good harvests!  👍

June Camping: Timothy Lake and Wapiti Park

Summer has been formalized with two camping trips in two weeks this past month!  The first trip to Timothy Lake fell into our laps, after friends had to forfeit their reservations due to the school district extending its year by another week due to Covid.  We took their spot at this beautiful location just south of Mt. Hood, literally right on the lake.  Although it rained the first 24 hours (really hard the first night), the second 24 hours was quite mild and pleasant, staying clear enough for the boys to try some fishing out on a canoe.

My mom just happened to be visiting, so we brought her along, making this our first trip of four in our 16' foot trailer (plus the dog).  She hadn't camped in over 30 years (since I was about my son's age), when our last family camping trip was cut short due to our tent flooding from a freak rain storm in the Sierras.  In June.  So it was ironic that it rained the entire first day we were there.

We mostly just enjoyed the grounds, walking around, exploring, chatting with the Canadian geese that were looking for snacks and staying dry.  We grilled, we smore'd, we drank, we laughed and we camp-fired.

The campground didn't have any hook ups, so we were totally self-sufficient, which means we got to test out our solar panels for the first time.  Even in thick tree cover on mostly-cloudy days, they still managed to maintain 11.4 volts on a 12 volt battery to power the trailer.  We brought an extra 5-gallon container of fresh water (in addition to the fresh water tank in the trailer), and only stayed two of the 3-night reservation, so the waste tanks didn't get too full, even with an extra person on board.  The heater and cook top ran off the main propane tank, and we grilled our food outside whenever possible.

Mt. Hood is normally in view with the lake in the foreground, but it hid behind the clouds the whole time we were there, so we didn't get any pictures of it.  However, we still got some other beautiful shots regardless, and made another fun family memory.

The following weekend, we headed to the coast to Wapiti RV Park in Lincoln City.  The park is nestled in a little private valley two miles inland from Hwy-101, with no Wi-Fi and very minimal cell reception.  It was great.  

Although the physical spaces were just in a large, gravel parking lot, they all backed up to an open grassy field with large, shady trees.  There was a small swing set and monkey bars for the kids, electrical and sewer hookups (dump station at the exit for sewer), and the fire pits were old, big-rig tire rims which was pretty amusing.

The park had three shelter spaces for group entertaining/ parties which had running water, electrical outlets and wood-burning stoves in the middle of the room, presumable on days where the weather is too terrible to party outside.  The park also had a half basketball court, horseshoe pits and disc golf for guests to enjoy.

On the morning of our third day, right after breakfast, a herd of about 30 elk came strolling through the campground.  Everyone came out to take pictures and the entire campground just froze in appreciative pause.  The elk didn't seem to care too much about us humans, provided we didn't get too close, and they just grazed in the field for about an hour and then gradually returned back to the hills.  We saw a couple of older males with antlers, but most of them were females or adolescents, including 3 or 4 adorable young calves.

Monday was a balmy 64 degrees on the beach, with foggy mist hanging all around, and a very light breeze... perfect T-shirt and jeans weather.  We hung out on the beach for a couple hours, collecting shells, admiring driftwood and doing some people-watching.  There were few crowds on the beach (mostly families) and the traffic in and out of town was pretty cooperative for a weekday departure.

Out of the two locations, they both had their pros and cons:  Timothy Lake didn't have any hookups ($22/night) but it had gorgeous scenery and a private location with spacious sites - right on the lake!!  Wapiti ($35/night) had hookups, roomy green fields and was very close to town, but the sites weren't private at all - literally a gravel parking lot.  The elk were a huge bonus, however, and apparently stroll through the grounds quite often, according to the camp host.  Both campgrounds allow for tent and RV camping, so the flexibility is there depending on your preferences.  Three stars to both locations, but if we had to pick a return trip, it would probably be to Timothy Lake.  👍

Next month's trip: Champoeg State Park!