What retirement looks like!

 

September 10-28

So he really did it! Dean retired on October 1, 2021! Ten days later we took off for Eastern Oregon, the Olympic Peninsula and down the coast home.

Here we are ready to go! Day 1 of Active Retirement (10 days of prep)

Our first campsite at Sims Flat. This was a real gem of a campground. Not many people, nice campsites and facilities and interesting places to walk. There were some CCC camps here, a stream with nice bridge and overlooks and train tracks (only a couple of trains so they were exciting rather than just noisy). We'll be back! It's just north of Lake Shasta so a very convenient stop.

Our next campsite was at Goose Lake on the California/Oregon border. It was bitterly cold so we cooked and ate in the van. Only set the smoke detector off a couple of times. 
Watson thought the table was set up just for him but he was a good boy and didn't eat our dinner.

He does take up most of the floorspace.

It was cool enough this trip that Watson wore his jacket most of the time.
Such a handsome boy!

We explored Eastern Oregon. The John Day Fossil Beds National Monument is AMAZING! It is comprised of 3 sections. We visited two of them. Beautiful colors in the hills.  No campgrounds in the park so we stayed at Clyde Holiday State Park. Somehow the name seemed "cheesy" to me but the camping was great!

We stayed two nights at Cottonwood Canyon. As we drove in we were not feeling all that impressed (it had great reviews) and considered moving on after one night. Glad we decided not to! It ended up being a favorite stop. On our layover day we had a wonderful hike (stroll) along the river and Dean spent most of the day looking for Big Horn Sheep in the hills-with great success! He saw several herds of 5 to 6 each time and they were impressive (if far away). The new binoculars did their job well. Weather was a bit windy and a bit of rain but we were nice and dry in the van.

Sunset at Cottonwood Canyon

Onto the Columbia Gorge and Yakima Valley. We did a couple of wine tastings and had our first Harvest Host stay at one of them. After our tasting and veggie board (dinner) they sent us out to find a spot to park in the vineyard and we were treated to a gorgeous sunset and an impressive sunrise the next morning. Felt like a true adventure and we will do it again.

Sunset at the Yakima Valley Winery

We timed it perfectly for the fall colors! Reds, Yellows, Oranges!

We were close enough to Canada that Verizon welcomed us to Canada. Still waiting for my pass port to arrive so it will have to wait till next time to cross the border.

We had rain in the rain forest! Olympic National Park, the Hoh Rain forest.

Here is the traditional enjoying the coffee and the sun photo (there was just a bit of sun). Note the scruff! He's doing the full retirement vibe.

In reality we had rain for over half of the trip. They were even calling the storm a "bomb cylone" storm. Most days we had plenty of rain but often it cleared so we could still spend some outside time. The van made a big difference in how happy we were-we were very happy and quite comfortable.

The waves (below) were awesome and huge! Several nights we had campsites near enough to hear them. We watched the high tide with great interest.

They changed the name of Patrick's Point State Park to Sue-meg State Park on the day I made the reservations. This honors the Native American people who lived here originally. Report is that Patrick was not a very nice person. Still raining. We had the campground to ourselves (there were a few others but not many).

Just a couple of tree huggers!

Our Itinerary and Campsites

Sims Flat, Shasta-Trinity National Forest

Goose Lake State Park, Oregon 

Clyde Holiday State Park, Oregon

Cottonwood State Park, Oregon

WilRidge Winery, Yakima, Washington

Tom Banks House

Heart o' the Hills Campground, Olympic NP

Bogachiel State Park, Washington

Hoh Campground, Olympic NP

Twin Harbors State Park, Washington

Cape Disappointment State Park, Washington

Cape Lookout State Park, Oregon

Umquoa Lighthouse State Park, Oregon

Sue-meg State Park, California

Standish Hickey State Park, California

Sugerloaf Ridge State Park, California