We were out on the road again today. We departed from Harris Beach SP in Brookings, OR, and settled in for the entire drive to Hiouchi, maybe 25 miles away in neighboring California. We are a bit sad about leaving Oregon. We drove into Oregon from Washington on August 22 and, other than wash days or crummy weather, we have been treated to stunning scenery every day. Some of the scenery was viewed through some nasty smoke because of this year’s horrible fires but it was pretty anyway. There’s no sales tax. The state parks offer magnificent scenery and most of them are free to visit and inexpensive to camp. The roads are a bit lumpy, though.
We headed south through Brookings where there is ample scenery right in town to make some folks drive up lamp posts. There is also an abundance of recreational marijuana sales outlets, perhaps because Brookings is the first town north of the border with a state with no current recreational commercial sales. Hmmm. We crossed the Chetco into the town of Harbor before heading into some gorgeous coastal plain, crossing into CA. A couple miles later, we turned southeast up the Smith River on CA-197 toward Jedediah Smith Redwoods State and Federal Parks. Shortly, but not too shortly, we noted a sign adjacent to the pavement that cautioned idiots, like me, to avoid using this route if towing a moderate-length trailer. It was too late to back up so we charged on blindly. It worked out okay but that is because there was hardly any traffic coming the other way so I could use both skinny lanes.
After a half dozen miles, we turned mostly east on CA-199, an effective and renowned killer of lane discipline violators and mobile texters. Fortunately, we only had to go about 3 miles before pulling into the Redwood Meadows RV Park in Hiouchi, pronunciation unknown. It seems to be a nice park with amply sized RV spaces, full hookups, good wifi, many washing machines in the laundry, cable TV and, most importantly, it is located right in Jedediah Smith Redwoods.
After setting up and sitting around for a bit, we hopped back in the truck and took a drive down nearby Howland Hill Road. It is initially a wide highway with a double yellow down the middle but that goes away right before it narrows to one lane which is followed by the paving changing to gravel. However, there are lots of turnouts and you’ll need them because the road passes through an absolutely amazing grove of old growth Redwoods. The massive trees would easily leave a stump you could park an F-250 on top of. Some of the trees have become so chubby that they have joined with adjacent monsters leaving 300 foot tall columns of wood 50 feet or more in circumference. Down on the road, where us mortals remain, there is little daylight and our automatic headlights stayed on for the entire drive through the park. We will be using that skinny gravel road for all our trips into town.
We still had some time left before dark so we took a spin down the coast a few miles to Enderts Beach overlook which offers a great view north of a long, curving beach with Crescent City, the Lighthouse and a shark’s mouth full of seastacks in the distance and an equally terrific view to the south of sheer rock cliffs and more seastacks. We should have reserved a longer time here. It is awful pretty.
We took pix of some neat stuff today. Check it out. Click here

This morning the weather looked a bit ugly with light rain, low clouds and fog. After about 10;00 AM, the rain quit and the skies looked like they were clearing so we headed out on an exploration of the coast range and the beautiful coastline between Brookings and Cape Sebastian. Peggy was the driver today and I was assigned navigation duties, including routing and destinations. I figured the first thing we would look for was the devastation left by the Chetco Bar Fire which continues to burn way east of Brookings but is out on this side.
We started by exiting Harris Beach SP and crossing US-101 onto a long, serpentine, narrow road mountain trail called Carpenterville Road. It wanders up and down the foothills of the coast range, ultimately popping out of the hills and into the Pistol River Valley. Unfortunately, as the designated person to select destinations, I did a rotten job because most of the road was in mountainous terrain and it was foggy so we couldn’t see anything to the east.
Once we got to Pistol River, we drove up the paved roads on both sides of the river. The south bank road is only about 3 miles long so it didn’t take us long to get turned around before discovering some place where we couldn’t. The north bank road was a bit longer but we ran into the same problem and headed back west to 101, spotting turkeys and some kinds of ducks we couldn’t identify. It is very pretty up the Pistol. I wish the paving ran further upstream.
Once on 101, we turned north up to the south boundary of Cape Sebastian where we turned around to go south and started a program of checking out all the fabulous viewpoints and pullouts that overlook a most extraordinary section of coastline. The shoreline and inshore waters are dotted with massive rock monoliths that rise to amazing heights from the Cape all the way to below Brookings. The cliffs are vertical and unforgiving to stupid wanderers who try to scale them. To make things better, the weather put on a show with sunny sections, dense fog clumps and clouds blasting by us.
There seem to be many arched rocks protruding from the ocean and all of them seem to be called Arch Rock. We saw not less than 5 Arch Rocks in 20 miles but it does seem they would give them different names so when someone says, “Have you seen Arch Rock?” we could reply with anything other than, “Which one?” Funny names or not, they are pretty snazzy.
To finish the day, we continued south past our RV location and headed up the north bank of the Chetco River to see if we could rubberneck some burnt ground from the recent horrible fire. We found it. The fire destroyed everything. We ultimately got turned around by a nice Forest Ranger who told us we could not go any further upriver because they didn’t want us in with the firefighting men and equipment. After looking at the burnt terrain, we didn’t need any encouragement to turn around and leave the work to the workers.
We took some nifty coastal pictures today. See some of them by clicking here

The weather for sightseeing was crummy today. It alternated between rain and fog for a good part of the day so we intended to stay pretty close to our trailer currently parked at Harris Beach State Park. However, it didn’t take us long to get bored so we voted, 2-0, to head down to a restaurant south of town called Mattie’s where we know they make good food because we have been there before.
Mattie’s only serves breakfast and lunch and that’s fortunate because we were having breakfast right after noon. Mattie’s is the place where the locals eat and the place is always jumping. Not too long after we were seated, a pair of nice ladies even older than me plopped down at the table next to us and we struck up a conversation. It turns out that the less elderly one is the companion for the older one who told us she was 98 years old. Whatever practices she followed in life must be the proper ones because she seemed sharp as a tack. I hope my mind in 10 years works as well as her’s now.
After our afternoon breakfast, we decided to do something productive so we went to the local Fred Meyer superstore and stocked up on food supplies and artificial Irish Cream for our proposed southward progress down the coast. I will wait to buy any real booze until we go about 15 miles south into California where booze is dirt cheap compared to Oregon and almost free compared to Washington. The Pacific Northwest is a magnificently beautiful area but their liquor laws and prices suck.

Reluctantly, we left Quosatana campground on the Rogue River today, continuing our generally southward progress. Fourteen miles west of Quosatana down Jerry’s Flat Road, we turned south again on US-101, joining it at the Rogue River bridge on the north end of Gold Beach. There are allegations that Gold Beach is a port and they even have a Port Authority but that is bullshit because there really isn’t a port. I would agree with it if you called Gold Beach a small marina because they do have some tiny docks and some sunken boats, the tops of which are visible above the water at low tide. There is one sinker close to the shore that has been substantially junk for at least the last 44 years that I have been driving by, quite possibly longer, based on its appearance.
Just south of Gold Beach the terrain gets very rocky and the road follows the terrain. Cape Sebastian is next and passing through requires quite a bit of climbing and descending, reflecting the course the road builders had to take to punch a highway through this jumbled and beautifully forested terrain. At the south end of Cape Sebastian, the road descends down to run parallel with the shoreline which is lined with massive sea stacks and rugged reefs visible only when waves break over them. Near Pistol River, the road traverses a wide sand plain with small lakes that is separated from the ocean by long sandbars. It is quite beautiful here and I need to find a nearby RV camping spot on our next pass through this part of the world.
Not too much further down the road (20 miles), we approached Brookings where we pulled off 101 and headed about 500 feet west into Harris Beach State Park. The park is located atop some impressive rock cliffs and overlooks a myriad of giant rock formations protruding out of the Pacific. Harris Beach campground has RV spaces that, due to my handicapped ability to back up articulated vehicles into blind spurs, seem quite tight although after about five passes we were able to get our Barbarian Invader almost where we wanted it. The adjacent spaces have peninsulas of vegetation between them, preventing unwanted intimacy with the neighbors. The whole park is located in a grove of impressive Douglas fir and spruce trees that create gorgeous shafts of light passing through the branches in the afternoon. There are many dogs here and we both like that, preferring dogs to many humans we know. The RV spaces have full hookups, the park has ample restrooms for those who need them and the cost is $30 a night. Those wishing to stay here should consider making reservations in advance because the park is very popular and the spaces are filled almost every night.
We went down into the public day use section of the park late in the day. There are picnic tables in grass, a good-sized parking area and magnificent views of the long beach, steep cliffs and massive sea stacks. It is stunning scenery and the weather was crystal clear today. We probably should have made a longer reservation.
We got some good coastal pix. Click here

Quosatana campground is such a great place for us that we chose to spend another day here. Our campground greeter, Hildy the turkey, wandered down into the meadow to scrutinize us while keeping the local deer herd in line. Hildy believes she is the empress of Quosatana and all deer activities are subject to her approval.
Hildy stationed herself alongside the entry road to the park, grazing on whatever turkeys eat. In the late afternoon, the deer ambled down the road to engage in their evening meal in the meadow. Unfortunately for them, they were required to pass by Hildy’s guard post, unknowingly violating some Hildy rule such that Hildy came charging out of her grazing area and began to chase the deer around the pasture. Every so often, she would spread her wings, squawk and jump into the air which seemed to frighten the deer into moseying off to other, greener pastures. Hildy was quite adamant about keeping the deer in line. I, personally, did not know deer were frightened by single turkeys but now I know better.
Peggy and I were quite satisfied with hanging out under our Myrtle tree during what turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous day. We read, napped, hobnobbed and had cocktails without performing any productive work. We watched dragonflies harvest insects from the thick clouds of flying vermin schooling in the sunny patches. We settled back in our reclining lounges to watch the birds. We took strolls around the campsite and over to glance at the Rogue River but, other than that, we were quite sluggish and loved it. I’m glad most of the flying insects kept to the sunny areas.
Hildy and the deer can be seen disputing something. Click here

We awoke to clear skies and mild temperatures in this gorgeous place, Quosatana. We had no real agenda for today so we took it easy, spending the morning having breakfast, coffee and finding shady spots to set up our lawn furniture for some dedicated nature watching.
Hildy the turkey came by, browsing for food. We have seen Hildy each time we have been here previously and we were delighted to see she is still living here. She seems to have abandoned her unnatural attraction for deer because she visited all by her lonesome.
After considerable doing nothing, Peggy and I got up and took a stroll along the Rogue. It is a gorgeous river in stunning surroundings.
We performed no productive work today and were quite proud of the stuff we didn’t do. The beautiful surroundings were enough to keep us happy all day.
Our camping spot can be seen by clicking here

We gathered up our stuff, put a full load of water in the on-board tank, dumped the waste tanks and departed from Boice-Cope County Park near Langlois and continued our trek south. Boice-Cope was a gorgeous, almost-unknown gem right on the Oregon coast and we would love to return the next time we pass this way.
We headed south on US-101 through Port Orford (which is not really a port) and continued along the spectacular Oregon coast until we got to another non-port, Gold Beach, where we turned east up Jerry’s Flat Road. Jerry’s Flat really doesn’t have a flat – the terrain is steep and rocky. A better name might be South Side of the Rogue River Road although it is a bit cumbersome. Fourteen miles after leaving 101, we pulled off at a National Forest campground called Quosatana.
We have been to Quosatana before. It is a beautiful campground and boat ramp along the Rogue and the only thing wrong with it is the pronunciation of the name. I am from southern California and, considering the proximity of Mexico, I learned that all words have the vowels pronounced, like in Spanish, and, therefore, it is Quo-sa-ta-na. However, it is allegedly an Indian word (the Native American Indian, not the red dot Indian) and some folks pronounce it Quo-sayt-na. Last time I was here, I heard a redneck pronounce it Quo-sayt-nee so we are perplexed about how the word is actually said.
Regardless of the jumbled possibilities about who says what how, we chose a spot overlooking a meadow where the deer amble in each evening to browse on the grass. On previous trips here, we noted that the deer always show up with a female wild turkey who we have named Brunhilde (Hildy, for short). She seems to have an unnatural attraction for the deer because she is always right in the herd. We did see a few deer this evening but no Hildy. We hope she is okay.
The campground is very well tended, has paved RV spots, adequate federal restrooms but absolutely no water, power or sewer hookups. Since it is owned by the Feds and we have a geezer pass that allows us reduced-cost entrance to Federal lands, we had to cough up $7.50 per day which seems very reasonable, considering the magnificent surroundings. We wrote the park host a check for $22.50 and settled in for a three day stay.
Right next to the RV space we took there is a magnificent Myrtle tree (50 miles south the trees are called California Bays but we don’t worry about that much) that has many forks and throws a huge penumbra of shade over our site. We set the chairs up underneath the branches, poured ourselves a cocktail and settled in for some deer watching. The drinks were tasty and the deer were sleek and beautiful.
We use our generators to power up our trailer and charge the batteries in the morning and again at dinner time. All our other utilities are self-contained so we are happy as pigs in shit. It is gorgeous here. The Rogue passes by about 200 feet from our site and it is a beautiful color of green slicing between shorelines of green cobbles. There are blue jays, robins, vultures, ospreys, deer and ravens cruising around here and twice a day we hear the big jet boats go by, blasting upstream, that were the only source of access for years. This might be one of the only inland spots in the world where local delivery of mail is by boat. The boats used big, uncorked V-8s for propulsion and you can hear them coming for quite a ways. They have to use shallow-draft jet boats due to loads of close-to-the-surface rocks and reefs at or just below the river surface that would destroy propellers on boats with deeper drafts.
We shot a few pictures along the coast and you can see them if you click here