Safe Trip down to Nehalem Bay

Monday July 2

Had a safe trip down to Nehalem, though the popup rode kind of rough and squeaky. Not sure whether it’s the wheel bearings again (they were just repacked last year and we’ve only taken three trips since then) or something else. Wondering if I should swing by a Les Schwab and get it checked out, or just let it go until we return.

We hit awful traffic coming toward Tacoma and crawled along for 20-30 minutes, until we came to the site of the accident that caused the backup. Looked like someone dumped most of a trailer load of household stuff – ouch. Though whether that was part of another crash or the whole problem itself, who knows.

Otherwise, it was pretty smooth sailing to Longview, where we headed for Lake Sacajawea Park, a lovely spot to take a break about halfway to the campground. Last year, we parked alongside the road, hopped out, hit the restrooms and played for a half hour, and then we were back on the road. No such luck this year. There was a big festival gearing up (“Go Fourth!” the signs said), and there were signs all along the street, the length of the lake, saying “No RV or trailer parking.” Ack! We drove around a couple of times and couldn’t find any legal parking. There weren’t many people at the festival yet (it looked like people were still setting up and decorating booths when we arrived – around 3 or 3:30, so maybe it was an evening event?), so we (I) decided to sneak a spot for 15 minutes so we could get out and stretch our legs.

After that inauspicious beginning, we had a nice (though quick!) visit to the park. Felt really good to get out of the car after driving for three hours. The arrangement with the new electronics gear (Game boys and DVD player) was that we’d do other stuff for the first half of the drive (books on tape, look out the window), then watch a movie after our stretch break. Tynor got the little guys started on their new “Bob the Builder” movie before we even pulled out onto the road, and he zipped out the Gameboy for a round of Pokemon. As a bonus, Mom got a mostly quiet ride for quite awhile. :-)

I did interrupt the movie and Gameboy for the Lewis and Clark Bridge, since it’s such an impressive rise over the Columbia River. I think I appreciated it more than anyone else, but hey, I tried.

We arrived at Nehalem Bay around 6 p.m. and found that we had a great campsite. Very similar to last year’s, along the rail-lined trail to the bathrooms, but in Loop F instead of Loop E. Unfortunately, we soon discovered that our young neighbors were intent on socializing loudly for many hours, and the kids couldn’t go to sleep until quite late. Sigh. The whole campground was quiet except for the folks next to us! We’re hoping that they were all just excited to be getting together last night and will quiet down earlier tonight, but we’ll see. We’ve got a lonely barking dog across the way from us too – poor thing. The owners came back for dinner last night, then left before breakfast this morning. There are two dogs leashed at the site, but only one seems intent on trying to get some company from passers-by.

Tynor’s Take:

My view starts inside our own house: I had just gotten up when I was recruited into the packing brigade for our trip. But first I had to pack my own necessary items namely: ipod, cell phone, and assorted books.
Packing started with bringing up the large Tupperware that had our food in them. Then the rest was just blankets and other misc. stuff. My favorite part was when we were almost done and I could relax in the back of the car… man that is the life!
The first leg of the trip was mostly ipod listening and book reading… not really exiting. But while on I-405, we saw something that we won’t soon forget. We saw our friend Candi’s car on the side of the road, flowers and all!
At the end of the first leg, we stopped at Sacajawea Park to stretch our legs before our second leg. But before we could get out of the car, we needed to park. All of the parking spots that we could see were either “No RVs or Trailers” or “Reserved for Disabled”. Too bad we don’t have Grandma’s handicap card anymore ;-). We finally just parked in a handicap spot because we were just going to be there for 5 minutes or so.
Just after Sacajawea park, we started to go south on the freeway once more and we went across Lewis and Clark bridge and I got a really good picture of the metal “I” beams that support it. After exiting the park, I spent the rest of our journey on a GameBoy playing a Pokemon game. Right now (this is for Andrew if he’s reading this) I have a level 34 Pokemon that is the one that evolves to Blazekin (you can tell me in the comments). And a level 23 geodude and I just got past the water.
After we arrived, the setup of our camper when pretty smoothly. But after that, we couldn’t get a fire going because our wood was a little damp so it didn’t want to burn. Unfortunately, our neighbors are really into partying and laughing loudly so going to bed was not very easy but is was achieved eventually.
Today, we went to the beach after having cinnamon rolls for breakfast. At the beach, Niall made a big fort that held its own against about 6 waves! I went to visit a sandbar. After we got back, I set up the Canopy and rested in the tent trailer. Played a little bit of soccer with Niall and Cory then wrote this.

--Tynor Tynorfujimoto.wetpaint.com