My original plan was to do laundry that afternoon but for a while that was in question since there was an injury head-on collision on the lake-side road leading to the park that closed the road. The rumor mill, had it being a fatality accident which would have closed it for hours but the good news is that the rumor mill was wrong. One of the folks had to be airlifted—which isn’t good—but it’s way better than having had someone die.
The road opened back up again by the time we had lunch so we headed into town to do the laundry and do a bit of internet stuff. By that evening, it was pretty clear to me that despite all my efforts I was coming down with Walter’s cold. Ugh. But this was my first cold since we hit the road almost 2 1/2 years ago so I really couldn’t complain. The good news is that we’d given ourselves Tuesday to rest up and get ready to go so all we had to do was go to the grocery store and stop by the book exchange in the basement of the library in Enterprise so Walter could trade in his old books and get some new ones. We were done with all that well before noon and simply rested and read for the rest of the day. Ahhhh.
Wednesday morning, September 27th, we packed up the trailer and headed out of Wallowa Lake. It was sunny and gorgeous in Joseph and I couldn’t resist grabbing a photo of the fall color in town—even if the red trees did clash with the purple petunias in the hanging baskets.
We headed on out Hwy 82 back to La Grande where we picked up I-84 heading northwest. We rolled into Peach Beach RV Park next to Maryhill State Park on the Washington side of the Columbia River at about 3:30. They were half empty and we once again got a nice waterfront site with a view of the river. Neither of us had much energy to enjoy the view though and instead took a nap. It was in the high 70’s and perfect weather to snooze.
It didn’t cool down much that evening but between the fact that my head was stuffed up and I was wearing ear plugs I didn’t hear a single train toot its way past in the night.
Thursday morning we had a bit of high clouds but there was less haze than there had been the day before and you could see Mt Hood to the southwest as we crossed the Columbia back to the Oregon side to pick up I-84 again.
And then later we got an even fuller view from I-84.
We managed to arrive at Premier RV Resort in Coburn just north of Eugene by about 2:30 which gave us time for lunch and a bit of internet surfing before heading into Eugene to visit Trader Joes to stock up on important things like wine and cereal and a drug store for more Kleenex and cough drops.
On Friday we headed down the Umpqua River out the coast to follow Highway 101 south to Cape Blanco State Park—about 60 miles north of Brookings where we spent the month of August. We thought that we would need to camp in the campground for the night because the September hosts weren’t leaving until Saturday. But when we stopped to talk to the camp host we found out that the September hosts were in the process of leaving right then. So we headed back down the hill and parked in a wide area near the Hughes House and hiked down to our spot to make sure it was empty—and while the parking spot was empty, there was a greeting committee—a hen turkey and a chick eating bird seed on the picnic table.
So I waited down at the site and caught this photo of Walter as he drove François and Genevieve past the Hughes House.
There’s a barn next to our site and I walked around the it to take a photo of the view.
That’s the Sixes River over on the right and then a bit of the Pacific and the edge of Gull Rock over on the left through the bushes.
We got settled in and even hung out our camp host sign.
Walter can see the river from his side of our back windows but mostly I have a view of a hedge and a propane tank. But since we have only the occasional ranger in the barn next door and the manager and his wife a block a way or so in the managers house, it’s pretty quiet in comparison to sitting at the entrance of the Wallowa Lake campground and watching everyone arrive and leave.
Of course we’re just down the hill from the Hughes House but people park on the other side of the house so we rarely see the visitors except of course when we’re giving tours up there.
Friday night it rained but it was just cloudy on Saturday October 1st, when we headed up to the house for our orientation. We learned how to open up the house and went on a couple of tours and then while I was being introduced to the intricacies of running the little gift shop, Walter did his first tour. In no time, the Cape Blanco Heritage Society folks realized that we didn’t need them and they took off with a promise to return and help us close up for the day. We had about 40 visitors and most of them did tours. By afternoon the sun was out which was a great treat. We hadn’t thought that we’d work a whole shift that day (it was just orientation after all) so we hadn’t brought a lunch. Walter had run back to the trailer and gotten us snack bars but we were both hungry by the time we got back to the trailer at 3:45.
Next week I’ll give you a tour of the house—it’s really lovely.
Saturday night it rained again. But there were bits of blue in the sky when we got up. Sunday we were on our own opening the house up and sitting in the kitchen for the first two hours with no visitors.
I went out and took pictures while we waited and the sun even came out. Here’s the front of the house.
I hiked out to the first view point and managed to get a photo of the beach that actually included Gull Rock.
But in the afternoon, things livened up some and we had a big whopping 32 people come through the house—some of whom who just did the self guided tour upstairs. I even made a sale in the Gift Shop and got to run the credit card processor (successfully). We buttoned up the house (and shut off all the lights which is quite the process) and were back in the trailer by shortly after 3:30—the house is open from 10 am to 3:30 Wednesday through Monday and closed on Tuesday. We have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off and the Heritage Society mans the place on Mondays and Wednesdays.
We’re having fun even if the weather is pretty wet already. Our hotspot works as do our cell phones (Walter’s better than mine). There’s no over the air TV but we are at least somewhat connected to the world again after a month of no internet or TV at Wallowa Lake.