We awakened pretty late this morning and took our time getting ready to leave Newport such that we just barely got out of the park by the check-out time of 11:00. I am not sure how they enforce this rule but since we were gone, it made no difference.
We took OR-20 through the coast range emerging in Philomath / Corvallis area in the Willamette Valley. Although our maps show the route as being non-RV friendly, we think they may have made a mistake because the road was fine. Once in the valley, we turned north on I-5 through Salem and Portland where we turned up the Columbia River on I-84. We exited the freeway in the town of Troutdale, driving down their main historic street on our way to the Sandy River RV Resort which is between Beaver Creek and the Sandy River on the sides of the park and the Columbia just a bit north. The park is not affiliated with any of our myriad park discount organizations so it cost $83 for two nights.
Sandy River RV Resort is very well maintained with excellent roads, wi-fi, nice restrooms and activity buildings, creekside or riverside back-in spaces and numerous pull-thrus, all of them pretty close to each other. They advertise cable TV with HBO but we were unable to make our state-of-the-art TV receive more than just a few channels although the HBO came in very well. The park is almost full.
After lounging around for a while we decided to drive down and take food for dinner to Peggy’s nephew and his family about 15 miles away. We stupidly selected 5:00 PM as the travel time and we were almost immediately hamstrung by absolutely horrible traffic, spending about 30 of the 45 minute drive time waiting at long red lights. We stopped at a Safeway and picked up barbecue-type grub which they graciously prepared while we sat around drinking porter. Peggy’s nephew, Ben, his very sharp spouse Emily and their two kids, Jack and Abby entertained us old people and took us on a tour of Ben’s man cave. It is a high-bay steel building behind the house equipped with a 55-inch flatscreen, neat wall decorations like vehicle front ends with working lights, traffic signals and the best man cave restroom I have ever seen. He has a shower, a toilet, a urinal and a sink his bathroom which is more than I have in any bathroom in my house. We finally left these folks alone at about 9:00 since they have to work but we don’t. Hahahahaha.
Got a couple pix you can see by clicking here