Oregon Coast and CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK
4 STARS- It Can Be Done! Within your comfort steps and with wheels. Also can be seen from the car.
Hi Friends! Welcome to the journey!
The last few days of our road trip were to the Oregon Coast and Crater Lake National Park. Our first stop was Brookings Oregon which is on the southern border of Oregon. As I have said, I grew up in Oregon and we went to the coast many times but usually in the Florence/Coos Bay area. It was fun to explore the southern coast. Brookings is known for its sea stacks – rock stacks or mounds in the ocean. The placement and the different sizes of these sea stacks were breathtaking. And the amount of them. Harris Beach State Park is a great area to see these rocks. There is a large campground that you pass as you drive in. At the parking lot the beach is split. On the right side it was uncrowded and very windy. All along the coastline there is driftwood that the tide has brought in and this was the case here.
The left side of the beach was a bit more protected from the wind. More people were on this side. This could have been because there was a great pathway that was wheelchair accessible and it made it very easy to reach the sand. There weren’t many people in the ocean, but if you have been to the Oregon coast you know the water is not the right temperature for comfortable swimming.
As we drove up the coast we saw again many places to pull off and view the ocean. If you had been driving from north to south it would have been very convenient to pull off at more of them then we did. But the view always seems different which makes the drive worth while. We stayed north of Brookings in Gold Beach. The prices were less expensive than Brookings and we were planning on sight seeing in this area also. The Rogue River enters into the ocean here. A very popular thing to do is a jet boat tour up the river. We talked to a few people who really enjoyed this and it would be something fun to try when puppy wasn’t with us. They also had a nice boardwalk shopping area that looked like a lot of fun with interesting shops.
The next day we drove north again in search of lighthouses. There are 11 lighthouses on the Oregon coast. 1 was in Brookings which we didn’t even see or realize until we got to Cape Blanco. This working lighthouse was exactly what you would expect. On a bluff, white, and windy. Tours were available but it was fun to walk around the area. Dogs were allowed on a leash there. They had a nice gift shop. This is where we saw the Lighthouse Passport. It was a small book that told about all the lighthouses in Oregon and had a place for a stamp. A great idea for the next trip. As you remember we do this with the National Parks. Cape Blanco is the oldest standing lighthouse in Oregon. It was built in 1870.
The next lighthouse we came to was Coquille River. It is unique because it is located slightly up the river so it could guide the boats into the river. It has not been a working lighthouse since 1939. As you can tell from the pictures it is quite run down. It sat for many years and only recently have they started with renovations. I actually loved seeing the rust and raw wood inside. It was very authentic.
We had to say goodbye to the ocean and head over to Crater Lake to start our way home. We drove over to Roseburg and through the Umpqua National Forest to get to Crater Lake. There was a forest fire north of us and we were really worried that we would get to the lake and not be able to see anything – similar to getting to the coast with fog and hearing the ocean but not seeing it. Fornutally that was not the case and we had the picture postcard view of the beautiful lake and that amazing blue color. If you know anything about the Pantone color system, we chose the color Reflex Blue. It is just so hard to describe what color it really is. Crater Lake is like Lassen NP in that you could spend a week there or a couple of hours. Sometimes I think we are not doing the trip right when we just go, see, take some pictures and leave. I guess unless you live by the park or vacation there, seeing it for a couple of hours is better than not seeing it at all. And it is all about seeing all 61 parks in my life and as many of the monuments, forests and recreation areas as possible.
Well this has been a lot of driving but a trip that we will remember for a long time. It is probably good that it takes so long to drive there or I would be wanting to go every weekend. Please leave comments on what we would do better and where you would like us to go. We didn’t say a lot this trip about walking distance and steps in this trip, but everything we did was something you could drive to and stop and see so it was certainly something you could do. Also if you don’t want to drive the long distance, Trinidad is 6 hours from the Oakland airport, 6 hours from Eugene, and 4 hours from Medford. We will definitely be trying the flying option the next time.
Thank you for joining us on our journey!
Be sure to check out the photo album for all of the photos from this part of the trip!
Make sure you check out the video of the trip on YouTube!