The destination for today’s trip was a little vague when we departed from our fifth wheel and headed east on US-12 up the Cowlitz River. We zipped through Mossyrock, Morton, Glenoma and Randle before pulling into Packwood. The drive here from I-5 is very pretty and there’s plenty of turnouts available where we could get out of the truck and gaze slack-jawed at the sensational scenery. There used to be a sawmill in Packwood that was a robust employer but the mill’s gone now so the town looks like it is shriveling up.

Just up the road from Packwood, we left US-12, turning north on OR-123 and up the flanks of Mount Rainier. Like an idiot, I suggested that we go up to Rainier without consulting the weatherman first. There were clouds obscuring anything taller than about 10,000 feet so we didn’t get to see the elusive volcano which tops out at 14,411 feet. That’s okay; this part of the world is still spectacular even if you can’t see the top third. There are waterfalls right next to the road. The volcanic terrain is jagged, unforgiving and absolutely beautiful to look at. Walking around and climbing here is miserable for those not used to abrupt cliffs, dense vegetation, rocks shaped like stabbing weapons and constantly distracting surroundings. Don’t step over the edge here.

Conditions were terrific for flowers today. Amazing arrays of wildflowers were in bloom all across pastures and right up to the fog line at the road’s edge. We spotted a type of flower called a Colt’s Foot which is shaped like a foot-long teardrop or comet. Peggy found weird plants she thinks are Hostas.

We soon turned off OR-123 and onto Stevens Canyon Road which started us going back west. Stevens Canyon Road eventually does indeed go west from 123 but it does a lot of north, south and east before going any closer to the coast. Along this section we spotted a marmot that had a nice perch overlooking the road. He was a big, chubby guy about the size of a beaver but without the silly tail.

We soon crossed the top end of the Nisqually River which at that point looks like a gritty, fast-moving creek but it is on top of and enormous river of gravel and boulders that have washed down from the mountains. The rock & gravel pile, and the ever-wider river extend for dozens of miles along the bottom of a massive glacial ravine. The water gets clearer the further it goes downstream. The rock and gravel must filter out all the ground up rock brought down by the meltwater from the glaciers above. We soon pulled into the little town of Longmire and continued west through Ashford and Park Junction, following the Nisqually down into the flatlands. At Elbe, we turned south and OR-7 which took us back to Morton over in the Cowlitz River Valley. From there we headed back west on US-12 to our digs at Paradise RV in Silver Creek. Just over our left shoulder during this segment we could check out St. Helens looming just to the southeast.

Check out the pix we got today by clicking the link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/inap9aSk4pQvahV36

Today Peggy did the laundry in the park laundromat, leaving me at the trailer to catch up on this erstwhile journal and to watch crummy movies. We had not used up all our clothes but Peggy figured she could get ahead because we will definitely see good stuff in the days ahead and laundry chores are a pain in the ass when there is good stuff to see and fun things to do.

Another day without pesky chores. We went on another exploratory mission today, this time to Chehalis, a town about 35 miles northwest of our current digs at Paradise Campground in Silver Creek. To start out, we almost immediately went south – the wrong way. We moseyed by a local ranch that has llamas grazing and sleeping in a big pasture that offers absolutely stunning views of Mt. St. Helens. The llamas are strange-looking creatures. They have bodies about the size of a big deer or small elk but heads that are almost microscopic. The shape of their bodies most closely resembles a camel. They understand they spit. We kept our distance.

Next in our aimless wanderings we found our way down to the Cowlitz Trout Hatchery where we didn’t go see the tanks of trout but did drop down right to the river’s edge. When we were here a few years ago, we spotted a bald eagle there that liked to perch in a big alder tree right across the river from the hatchery. Eagle-eyed Peggy spotted him in just about the same place she found him in 2016. The news was good – he now has a nice mate, just a bit smaller but no less magnificent. They sat together, making eagle noises and preening each other while we got sunburned and ogled them from a distance. My butt was getting sore from sitting on the tailgate so we finally departed the trout hatchery area (not to be confused with the Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery area a few miles distant) and headed north.

We took the back roads even though the route on I-5 was much shorter. I felt this was the prudent thing to do because I had eaten some nice chocolate I had picked up at the dispensary a bit earlier and hectic driving seemed uninteresting at that point. Our first destination was a DXL store in Chehalis where Peggy went inside in an effort to make me look like I don’t live in a dumpster and shop at the Salivation Army. After about 15 minutes of breaking even on Solitaire played on my phone, Peggy re-emerged with some new clothes for me. I hope they look good and fit, for her sake.

My chocolate snack earlier in the day was making me grin idiotically and whirl happily so I turned the driving chores over to Peggy for the remainder of the trip. That is some gooood chocolate. Our next stop was a Tractor Supply where I wanted to shuffle in and pick up some bird seed for the feeder we put out for my friends. As soon as we passed through the doors, Peggy immediately stopped in the clothes section so I told her I would return there to find her later. I was on a mission to find a restroom. It turned out to be quite a test. There was only one sign on the store floor to indicate where the restroom might be and it took me quite a while to find that. I headed in the direction indicated by the sign and soon came to a long, shiny white corridor that had two doors leading off of it. Neither was a restroom. I continued to the end of the long hall and found at the far end it turned into another long, shiny corridor with no doors leading from it. I was getting suspicious. At the far end of that corridor was another turn, this time entering another shiny corridor where, finally, I found doors leading to the appropriate gender’s crapper. They must not want customers to go weewee or cocky-doody here because if they did, they wouldn’t have put the restroom in another town. To top it off, after I got my hands all nice and clean, I found there were no paper towels in the dispenser so I did the man thing; I wiped them on my pants. After my long tour of corridors in the store, I returned to Peggy who was just finishing up in the clothes section. We wandered over and picked up some bird seed and made our escape.

Peggy drove us back to Silver Creek. This time I got to admire the scenery without having to pay attention to the road. It was glorious.

We got some pix. Click the link.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/C7VdQnoFemgqGpmr5

A total lack of stuff we had on our schedule allowed us to feel free about taking a leisurely drive on the back roads around Silver Creek. This is a gorgeous area and we figured some random wandering without the benefit of the GPS was in order.

Before we had even left the Thousand Trails Paradise Campground property, we arrived on a ridge with a spectacular view of the Cowlitz River Valley. No matter where one goes in this valley, anyplace with a view to the east includes the now much shorter Mount St. Helens, a stratovolcano that provided everyone with a noisy surprise back in 1980 when it erupted. About 1300 feet of the top of the mountain abruptly vanished and pyroclastic flows filled lakes and re-routed rivers 50 miles from the big formerly pointy mountain. A few dozen diehards that remained in the vicinity of the mountain after being warned to leave were also vaporized or buried under hundreds of feet of ash. St. Helens looks peaceful today although it still periodically spits and sputters, the last time in 2008.

After checking out the wonderful view to the east, we moseyed down into the valley with our first stop being the Mayfield Dam, which holds back Mayfield Lake. It is one of many dams of the Cowlitz River Project, which provides electrical energy to Tacoma. These dams also provide drinking water to cities to the north and irrigation water to Cowlitz River Valley agricultural interests. The agricultural interests mostly seem to be cows and Xmas trees although we did pass a pasture where the rancher has a flock of llamas. I don’t know what interest a rancher could have with these spitting malcontents. Maybe they are alpacas. Then I suppose the agricultural product would be sweaters.

This would be a nice place to have a house because the scenery from the front yard would be great. There is no looking at the neighbor’s car parked across the street nor any junk piles decorating his yard. You can’t even see anybody else’s yard here. The houses folks have built for themselves here are very nice without being obnoxious, like Bill Gates’s indoor acre over in Seattle. We passed by a great place called the Long-Bell Mill Pond which is home to a household clothing business called Bodacious. We are not bodacious types so we didn’t go in. We continued up past a lagoon called Swofford Pond which is above Riffe Lake, the next Tacoma Power reservoir to the east. Swofford is located maybe 50 feet above Riffe Lake and a short creek connects the two.

We returned to Paradise Campground through Mossyrock where we found a former drive-in called the Viking Inn is now closed. No milkshakes for us today. We did find a stand run by a little Mexican guy that sold strawberries and cherries. Peggy was unable to resist and that is fortunate because she alleges the strawberries she bought were the best she has ever eaten. The jury is still out on the cherries.

There’s a few pix. Click the link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/hQdwZK4xvvCcP4mG7

We left Fort Stevens this morning so we could continue our northward trek. Fort Stevens is an amazingly beautiful campground in a gorgeous area and we were sort of sorry to leave. We hooked up and drove a few miles toward Astoria to get back on US-101 but once in town, we turned east on OR-30 for a run along the south shore of the Columbia River. It is a squirrelly road for the first 30 miles or so but it eventually straightened out and we got the truck and trailer up to 55 for some short runs.

We crossed a bridge over the Columbia and soon we arrived in Kelso, WA. From there, we took I-5 for 40 or 50 miles before turning east along the north shore of the Cowlitz River. Maybe 15 miles later, we arrived in Silver Creek, home to a U.S. Post Office and not too much more. We pulled into the Thousand Trails Paradise Campground and, remarkably, found an RV site with full hookups and satellite TV reception. In this campground, there are very few sites with satellite reception because it is situated beneath a full canopy of large Douglas fir trees that are very pretty but rough on signal reception. The campground is also built on the side of a hill and the spaces can be scary to pull into. Mysteriously, we pulled into our RV space with a single pass, surprising not only us but also our neighbors. It was nearly a miracle and I would love to take credit for highly talented driving but I think actually I was just lucky.

We probably did not drive over 100 miles today but it took three hours on the road. This part of the world offers truly magnificent scenery but areas of that ilk frequently have serpentine and hilly highways to get around the stunning terrain. We are not in a hurry so slow transit just does not matter to us.

Today we went into Astoria. It is a gorgeous city cozied right up to the end of the Columbia River, the filming location for the movie “The Goonies” and a locale chock-full of architecturally magnificent wood residences. Peggy’s family spent some time in Astoria when she was a kid because her dad had some contracts here and I find it easy to discern why she loves the place.

Since Oregon, and particularly the Columbia River, played crucial roles in the now flagging old-growth timber business, all the structures here were built of wood. Not a lot of cast-in-place concrete or masonry buildings can be found in town. However, the craftsmen that built the houses were very proficient at their trades because the hundred year old structures are still standing and they look very spiffy.

We drove our rather large truck up and down the narrow streets of the hill above the commercial district, gawking at the hundreds of gorgeous houses. Only a few people gave us the fisheye for holding up traffic while we were ogling the structures. They were mostly very nice about it. While making a nuisance of ourselves we also spotted many deer living in the abundant vegetation between houses. They were happily nibbling on expensive, labor intensive landscaping bushes and flowers, only to scamper away when we got too close with our noisy truck.

We worked our way up the huge hill above the business district, ultimately ending up at the Astoria Column. The Column should actually be called the Tower because it doesn’t hold anything up. The Column itself is located on the highest point of the surrounding terrain and truly stunning views of the Columbia, Lewis & Clark and Young Rivers watershed areas. Huge freighters, tankers and barges look tiny as they make their ways into and from the ports of Oregon and Washington. The Column itself is spirally decorated with historical scenes from the area although some of the scenes may be interesting to white folks, they may appear to be a sanitized version of the re-allocation of Native American lands into the hands of timber, fishing and mining interests. Either way, it is still very pretty. Spry young people and those in good physical shape can take a long spiral staircase within the Column and arrive at a small observation platform at the top. Just when we looked up at these hardy folks we spotted a bald eagle pair flying above the humans. They had the best view.

On our way out of town, we made a stop at Henderson’s Smokehouse to see if they had any kippered seafood for us to add to our larder. There were several people inside shopping with only one person behind the counter who seemed overwhelmed by making more than one transaction every quarter hour. Fortunately for us, it gave us ample time to check out the prices for smoked fish attractively displayed in the refrigerated cases. Once we spotted prices in excess of $40 a pound for smoked salmon, we faded to the back and finally chickened out. We will continue to search for the kippered snacks we get at grocery stores that have prices closer to $2 a tin.

We took a few photos in Astoria. To see ’em, click the link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/frnQvHKfuVbH4WVJ7

Today we were pretty boring. We went to Costco where Peg went in and stocked up our larders while I drove into town and bought fuel. We really like the fuel prices in Oregon. Just a couple weeks ago I was paying almost a dollar more per gallon in California. How much money is enough for that state?

We went exploring in the park today. Fort Stevens was originally a military facility which consisted of a myriad of gun emplacements and blockhouses intended to protect the Columbia River from bad guys. I doubt any shots were fired because the Columbia River bar, just beyond the long breakwaters, is a formidable hazard to shipping with massive waves, swirling currents and nearby shorelines littered with wrecked ships that failed in their efforts to cross from the Pacific Ocean into the Columbia River. The fort was used by the Army from 1904 to 1944 when it was decommishioned. When the Army finally gave up the unneeded property, the state turned it into a glorious state park.

The first place we visited was Coffenbury Lake, a gorgeous fresh water lake perched in the sand dunes near the ocean. There are great picnicking sites here with very nice views of the lake and abundant birds. We had just eaten so we then headed for the Pacific shoreline where we could see the rusting hull of the Peter Iredale, one of the ships that had the bad luck to unsuccessfully cross the bar, ending up smashed on the beach instead. The water is quite cold here. I don’t know if any survived.

We also took a spin up to the Columbia River where we could see large oceangoing vessels struggling upstream with lots of frothy wakes but very little forward progress. The Columbia is a monster and drains a huge watershed extending to Montana. All of the water comes out here so there is

a formidable current running toward the sea. Across the river in Washington State, we could see little dots moving around which we determined were cars and trucks. The river must be five or more miles across here at the outflow. At the end of the land in Washington it is called Cape Disappointment which seems suitable, considering the difficulty of crossing the bar offshore.

We also took a spin into the old headquarters area of the fort. Many of the buildings have been demolished but there are some that still remain, most notably the brick guardhouse with thick bars used to keep miscreants inside the brig. There are many gun emplacements built such that the cannons could be fired over the tops of the walls but reloaded by grunts who could hunker down out of the way of any return fire. These were sturdy, cast-in-place concrete structures and still stand in their original condition.

To end up the day, we cruised into the nearby town of Hammond, where we found a fish joint called Buoy 9. My fish and chips were great and Peggy was delighted with her clam strips. Prices were good (about $15) and we found they have WiFi so we will probably return so I can post this blog stuff.

There’s two pix. Click the link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/K3ZQkcDTF5Zof1q37

Today was a travel day. Since the Thousand Trails Pacific City Preserve has fabulous scenery but few sewer hookups, our first stop was at the park’s only dump station. This particular dump station has very narrow lanes bordered by yellow painted pipe bollards to protect the drains and hose reels. We know about this because when we visited here 5 years ago I turned just a bit too sharp for the conditions when exiting the challenging conditions and ended up with some of the yellow paint on the very back section of our trailer’s right side wall. We cleaned it off so I wouldn’t look so clumsy.

This time, we got through the dump station much lighter and unscathed and headed for US-101. US-101 is a superb highway but the section from Pacific City to Seaside is very twisty and there is quite a bit of climbing and descending as one passes north through the coast range of mountains. By the time we made it to Hammond, the town next to Fort Stevens State Park, we had taken 3 hours to do just over 90 miles of spectacular highway. Our average, despite the 55 mile an hour speed limit, was 30 miles per hour. It was strange coming across speed limit signs that indicated we better not be exceeding 55 followed closely by cautionary signs with a curved arrow suggesting a proper speed in the upcoming series of turns was probably no more than 30. We pulled over whenever we got more than a couple cars behind us, which occurred regularly.

We got to Fort Stevens SP about 2:00 PM and Peggy headed into the Ranger station to get the paperwork associated with our reservation. We then moseyed down the park roads until we found Loop M and then Space 54. It is a very nice pull-through space with spruce and hardwood forest surrounding it. There are full utility hookups here. What there isn’t is proper phone signal or WiFi. The towns of Seaside, Warrenton and Astoria are all nearby and we figured, incorrectly, that there would be phone and data communications. We were mistaken. Nevertheless, the park is absolutely beautiful with old growth spruce and alder trees, good roads and lots of stuff to see. We rewarded ourselves with cocktails in the shade after our arrival and setup. This is our second visit to this state park, the last time being in 2014 on our initial trip with the Barbarian Invader fifth wheel trailer and our sturdy Ford F-250 truck.

Today we had no set schedule and very little idea what we were going to do. To fill in our day, we decided to do a bit of exploring around Pacific City located about 4 miles south of our RV park. Accordingly, we started out by going north along the coast, checking out the superb views of forests, offshore haystack rocks and shoreline bluffs. After a few miles, we came to Clay Myers State Natural Area at Whalen Island, which is a county park that has a day use area and overnight camping. There are no utility hookups here but that doesn’t bothered the locals who were out in force with their fishing gear. Unfortunately for them, the only fish we saw that anybody had hooked were perch, a notoriously bony and almost meat-free species with large, difficult-to-remove scales and nasty spines on their backs.

This area is not on the coastline and Peggy wanted to take a stroll. Since this is estuary, walking alongside the water occurs not on sand but on mystery mud that is typically underwater. Peg was not impressed so we moved along. Next we went south, through Pacific City, which was almost deserted compared to yesterday. South of town we drove out on a long spit that ends at the Bob Straub Wayside. Bob Straub was a former governor. The little park has facilities for hiking, horseback riding and beach strolling. I climbed up on the berm between the parking lot and the long sand beach and found a seat on top while Peggy continued onto the beach. It is a very nice section of coastline but today it was very breezy; I was sandblasted each time I tried to look into the wind.

We called it quits after visiting the Wayside. We retreated back to the trailer and out of the wind. We also did a bit of prep for leaving tomorrow when we are scheduled to make the ninety mile run up to the Seaside area.

There’s some pix. Click the link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/N7Hycv64Vkt3tWdQ8