{"id":1506,"date":"2009-09-01T21:06:56","date_gmt":"2009-09-02T05:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awesomelymodest.com\/blog\/?p=1506"},"modified":"2010-03-19T12:10:11","modified_gmt":"2010-03-19T20:10:11","slug":"camping-road-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/awesomelymodest.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/01\/camping-road-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"Camping road trip!"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are a few reasons this particular trip came up. I love driving through the mountains and along the coast in the south bay area where I live. I’ve driven a few hours south, but never really gone north of San Francisco. Jenny’s from Washington and wanted both to visit friends and family as well as show me the Hoh Rainforest<\/a>. I also have a sexy new Honda Fit, which I’ve been lusting over for years due to its utility while camping. Hoocha, hoocha, hoocha- our camping road trip was born.<\/p>\n

This is the sloppily pieced together journal I’ve written up upon returning home.<\/p>\n

\"Neither
Neither my car, nor my tent.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

Day 1<\/h2>\n

Often times on weekends Jenny and I will plan to get up early and do something. We set the alarm, psyche ourselves up for whatever it is we plan to do, and promptly turn the alarm off in the morning when it goes off so we can get more sleep. Surprisingly, we actually got our asses out of bed and packed the car up when we actually intended. I chalk this up to wanting to get the hell away from school and work and people before we blew up all three.<\/p>\n

We had a campsite reserved in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park<\/a> the first night, which is far enough north to take forever if you take main highways. Driving up Route 1 along the coast makes it a good bit longer, technically, but the drive didn’t wear on me at all thanks to the beautiful sights and fun driving of the coast and not wanting to drive off a cliff and become a part of it.<\/p>\n

There were a constant signs warning of elk, though no elk to be seen.\u00a0 I did start Elk Watch ’09, however, since I’ve never seen one before and was rather excited to see one standing in the road.<\/p>\n

\"bumblebee\"
So many bees.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There were also a couple brief stops along the way. The most notable being a brief detour to drive my car through a giant redwood tree, so I could say that I had. I was super underwhelmed with the size of the tree, expecting it to be significantly larger. I was more impressed, and depressed, that so many old people were standing around it taking pictures and video of every car go through. We also took the opportunity here to let a bumble bee out of my car that I swear I’d let out two or three times prior. I let it out later in the day as well. I’m really not sure if the same bee kept getting in my car or if I had really taken in that many bees while driving with the window open. Just know that I let it out later on as well, and every time we entered the car for the entire rest of the trip I’d have to do a bee check, and even then I’d occasionally have to pull over and let one out of the car. So many bees.<\/p>\n

Driving with the window open also lead Jenny to putting on her hoodie, while I only had on a thin t-shirt. This is an important fact to note when I talk about setting up the tent while surrounded by giant mossy redwoods in the middle of a forest where there are mosquitoes. I didn’t even notice that there were mosquitoes out, because they were all busy attacking Jenny through her thick body-covering hoodie for her sweet bloods, leaving me alone entirely. It wasn’t until she sprayed herself down that they decided to bother me, and once I applied bug spray myself and evened the playing field, they all resorted back to her. I thought it was great, but I’m guessing it was not a mutual feeling.<\/p>\n

The campsite was absolutely amazing, but staking in a tent when there’s giant tree roots everywhere is a complete pain in the ass. I tried relocating the tent over and over, angling the stakes, hammering them with rocks and the heads of screaming children. Nothing worked. While Jenny started up a fire, I grabbed a piece of wood to use as a much more efficient and painless hammer and finally managed to get them into the ground.<\/p>\n

Day 2<\/h2>\n
\"I<\/a>
You thought I was joking.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Checkout was at noon, and we only had a couple hour drive to our next campsite at Tillicum State Beach<\/a> in Oregon, so we packed up the car and ate breakfast along a small trail behind our site. Before actually heading out we checked out a short nearby trail that lead to an opening of xbox hueg trees, some standing, some fallen over, creating a cool place to climb around and take photos. The Oregon coast is impressive as hell, and quite different than California. Giant rocks jutting out of the out of the beaches and water where they have no business, making impossible to reach islands of trees. I’m actually really curious what sort of animals are able to make it up there without being able to fly elsewhere, and how delicate a contained ecosystem that must be.<\/p>\n

The problem, Oregon, is that you don’t have a road along the entire coast. No, you try to draw people in to your tiny little towns, don’t you? And do you know what the speed limit in these little towns is, people? Fucking 25 and 30. In and out of 50-60mph coastal windy roads that dump you off into a goddamned slow, stupid town. DON’T YOU KNOW I’M FROM MASSACHUSETTS?! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY.<\/p>\n

We came up to Oregon’s Sea Lion Caves, and made a pit stop to check it out. With Jenny’s knee fresh out of surgery, there was a lot more steps and steep walkways than I think either of us were comfortable with her taking. She kicked the stairs’ and walkways’ faces’ asses, though, and we went down into the cave- which was quite large. The world’s largest, even, so they claim. When we got back to human elevations again, we asked where in the hell Tillicum Beach was, since we thought we may have passed it. Nobody knew. Sweet!<\/p>\n

Figuring the day was still fairly young, I kept driving north and it was only moments before I was about to turn around that I noticed a sign. Tillicum Beach! HUZZAH! WE HAVE FOUND IT! Then we pulled in.<\/p>\n

I thought one of my bosses suggested it as an awesome place to camp. Maybe because there was a beach nearby and beach==surfing? If he did suggest it, and if he’s reading this right now- you’ve blown your credibility, sir. Most of the sites were occupied by people with RVs, and dogs named Beauford, which blocked the view of the beach<\/a> for every other site. Also, ours was right next to the bathroom, but at least it was downwind of us. We considered switching to a different site, but that would have required paying for it and petitioning the reservation site for a refund on the original site. We opted to stroll along the beach, then drive to town, buy some cheese and wine<\/a>, and get drunk by a campfire instead.
\n<\/p>\n

Day 3<\/h2>\n

From here we were headed up to Olympia, hanging out with Jenny’s family and spending two nights at her close friend’s. We spent our morning letting the tent and sleeping gear dry off the condensation and dew in the sun and gradually packing the car up. Neither of us felt like bothering with cooking or cleaning for breakfast, so we decided to see if there was any good breakfast joints in town. We decided on The Landmark, for it’s view of the beach, and ate so much we wished for death for most of the rest of the day.<\/p>\n

The main stop today was Cannon Beach, for two reasons. It was used in The Goonies, and because Jenny would break up with me if we didn’t go there. I like dinner getting made for me, so we stopped. I’m not sure I want to say it was raining, but it was wet out.\u00a0 It was really more like walking through a thick mass of water than drops falling from the sky due to gravity. That said, Cannon Beach was great and I kept Jenny from breaking up with me another day.<\/p>\n

\"Happiest<\/a>
Happiest place on Earth!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The bridge into Washington was completely engulfed in fog. You could see for a distance, and in that distance was only the road and more fog. It was completely surreal, and sort of felt like we were driving on a road in a computer model<\/a>. There was nothing but the road and an even shade of grey in any direction you looked. No water, no sky, and an unchanging road disappearing in the distance. We were actually very fortunate in that we chose the week we did for our trip. The previous week had been struck with a heatwave, and there would have been only sun. I see sun in California. To hell with the sun, I want weather. It was while I was enjoying this weather that the blue flashing lights caught my eye and found a ticket for 124$USD in my hand.<\/p>\n

\"apsycho\"
AAAAAAAHHHHH<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I forget what time we got to Olympia, but when we got to Jenny’s house, everyone walked out as we pulled into the driveway. I should point out that her family is absolutely disgusting. They…hug each other….and say they love each other…and like being around one another. What the fuck kind of family does that shit? Honestly. I tell my family to suck eggs, like a goddamned patriotic American. After dinner we headed over to her friend, Jessi’s, house for the night. We were both dead tired from the drive, and went to bed pretty early- or tried to. We slept on the floor, above what sounded very similar to what you’d expect a Disney tunes karaoke party would sound like. In fact, that’s exactly what it was. Now, Jessi was basically a stranger to me, and let me tell you- when the stranger’s floor you’re trying to sleep on starts emanating a deep male voice as the lead for A Whole New World, you consider the fact that you may well not live through the night.<\/p>\n

Fortunately the blood cleaned off nicely, and we had a nice late-night snack by the warmth of burning corpses.<\/p>\n

Day 4<\/h2>\n
\"Addicted
Addicted to Tang.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Relaxing.<\/p>\n

We intended to head up to Seattle or Aberdeen, but we got lazy, realized we’d be driving through Aberdeen on the way up to the Hoh, and decided that I don’t give a damn about Seattle. Space needle?\u00a0 *masturbatory gesture* Instead, we spent the day casually driving around Olympia and acquiring camping supplies.<\/p>\n

Jenny’s father has, and let us borrow, basically everything camping related in the world. Especially things suited for a rainforest, which my gear is sorely unprepared for. We grabbed a 4-person tent, since mine is technically a 1-person tent, and in the rain that’s not much space to be stuck in. We also took a few tarps, rope, kindling, cooking pan (forgot mine at home), his thicker sleeping pad and his joined together sleeping bags. I’ve got a sleeping bag, which I love, but we basically just unzip the thing and use it as a blanket when we camp.<\/p>\n

That got me thinking that I’d really like to get the other half of my bag while it’s still easily found. Despite my sleeping bag still being available in stores, this other half business is not easy to figure out. Apparently they only make the other half in womens bags, which means they don’t quite line up perfectly. Fuck you, North Face for your assuming gays don’t camp, or making things line up between bags. We stuck with the borrowed bags.<\/p>\n

After dinner with her family, her father cut up a crapton of firewood, while I rearranged my car and set up a clean tarp to hold it all. My car holds a lot of stuff, and I quite like it. I was driving around Washington with a half car full of firewood, tons of camping gear, food, etc, and a third person. Comfortably.<\/p>\n

We went back to Jessi’s and watched L\u00e9on and following that, I passed out on the floor and they put on Total Recall and stayed up until 3 doing secretive girlie things, like hopscotch.<\/p>\n

Day 5<\/h2>\n

I wanted to make sure we got to the Hoh early, because if it happened to be dark and raining when I had to set up camp, I’d instead be spending the time stabbing the family in an already set up site. They also didn’t take reservations, and I wanted to have time to explore when we got there, unlike the previous campsites, so we woke up and got on the road at ass. It was raining<\/a>, and this pleased me.<\/p>\n

Aberdeen was also on the list of things Jenny would break up with me for not stopping at, but considering the entire town looked run down and awesome, I’d have stopped anyways. It basically felt like we were driving through an urban exploration wetdream, without the time to break into any buildings. We did take the time to stop by Kurdt Cobain’s first house<\/a> and tried to find a few caches.<\/p>\n

We then headed to the final “please don’t break up with me” spot, Ruby Beach, which was just outside the Hoh. We got there around 2 O’clock, and it was sunny as all hell out by now, so we spent a good while exploring and enjoying the beach. I’d never seen anything like this beach. Large pebbles in lieu of sand, and infininite piles of driftwood down the entire coast with large rocks jutting out of the water. Jenny managed to carefully climb around on some rocks with an epic homemade walking stick borrowed from her father as I hopped around them, both of us laughing at how much improved her knee has gotten since her surgery.<\/p>\n

\"Ruby<\/a>
Behold!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Once we headed out, it was a fairly short drive into the Hoh where we had a pretty good selection of open sites. We picked one that was fairly out in the open<\/a>, but also a good distance from the neighboring sites and a super close walk to the river. We placed the tent under the one tree in the area, and toyed with the idea of covering it in a tarp, deciding against it, but leaving one under our table for quick access if necessary. Again, getting the stakes in was a bitch, and my hands were still sore from fighting with them at previous sites. Also, MORE BEES! There were a few on the table as we set things up, and buzzing in and out of the car and around us as we pulled stuff out of the car.<\/p>\n

Later on we attended a program put on by a cute ranger chick who got super excited about small forest fauna, like banana slugs and flying squirrels and the Winter Wren.\u00a0 To be excited about the Winter Wren is to be excited about life!
\n<\/p>\n

Day 6<\/h2>\n
\"DEAR<\/a>
Pictured: Moss.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are a couple fairly short trail loops about a mile and a half long in the Hoh that aren’t all that difficult a walk, even for someone recovering from knee surgery. The first trail focussed on walking amidst giant trees covered entirely in absurd amounts of thick, dangling moss.<\/p>\n

After that, we took a brief break to let her knee rest, then decided to do the second trail. This one took us along the Hoh River, whose water has a thick, surreal artic bluish green colour to it, from glacial flour. The Hoh River is also an angry, destructive, bastard of a river<\/a>. Whole trees laying about in its constantly changing path. Finally, halfway through the trail, the rainforest started raining. We threw on our pathetic plastic bag ponchos<\/a> and covered our cameras, enjoying actual weather as we hopped over puddles and slippery rocks.<\/p>\n

I think it was as we got closer to our tent that we wondered exactly how our tent was handling the increase of water everywhere. Our tent wasn’t quite on the low ground, but it definitely wasn’t on the high ground. We didn’t have a foot under the tent, the rainfly only really covered the top, and it’s an old dusty tent that’s lived through the heat and fine dust of Blackrock City. All in all, probably not the most waterproof shelter in the world. More accurately, definitely not; water was seeping in from the bottom. I ran and grabbed a clean tarp from my car, and Jenny shuffled things around inside the tent and started laying it out over the floor while I grabbed the tarp from under the table and started tying it up over us. Once everything was finally covered over, we huddled up in the tent and made peanutbutter, honey, Goldfish & chee (or peahogoch) sammiches<\/a> for lunch, followed by a nap listening to thunder and rain.<\/p>\n

Day 7<\/h2>\n

MORE HIKING!<\/p>\n

\"Hiking\"<\/a>We premade some peahogoch sammiches and started off along the 17 mile trail along the river, figuring we’d walk for a bit, eat lunch, then head back from there. At some point we climbed out onto some big rocks by the water<\/a> to eat and enjoy the scenery for a bit of a break and to snack on some Goldfish. Then, about the mile and a half point, we came to some crazy steep hill (for the cripple), and Jenny actually made it down and up the other side. We didn’t walk much further, figuring another 3 mile hike might be a bit much for her knee, and sat on some big fallen trees for lunch. When we got back, we got shit drunk off two bottles of wine by the fire and then went to the night’s program about the forest’s process of decay and rejuvination. Tonight’s ranger wasn’t as funny or cute as the other nights, but the program was still fun. Inebriation served only to enhance its enjoyability factor.<\/p>\n

After several days up the northern coast and constantly on the look-out, I’d also come to terms with the fact that there are no longer elk.\u00a0 Either they’ve all migrated or died off.\u00a0 I prove this by submitting that the only elk seen during the entire trip were in an elk farm.<\/p>\n

Day 8<\/h2>\n
\"Twilight\"
Heed this advice, Twihards.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was not looking forward to this drive. At all.\u00a0 First we were driving up to Forks, because as everyone should know, Jenny and I are diehard Twilight fans.\u00a0 We ate breakfast and went to some fancy store chock full of Twilight bullshit for losers<\/a>, where Jenny actually paid for an item as a joke gift for Jessi.\u00a0 I fulfilled my civic duty and vandalized the guestbook, informing all future fans of their sexual orientation.\u00a0 From there we were driving back to Olympia, saying goodbye to Jenny’s family and dropping off the borrowed camping gear. We showered the funk off and I think ate lunch before we made our way to our last camping destination, Valley of the Rogue<\/a>, which was near the California border.<\/p>\n

As I drove along the highway at night with cruise control set to 80mph, I looked around at the mountains and the diarrheal blast of stars in the sky, I wondered why the hell anyone complains about Rt. 5. This was awesome, except for the bit where I had to pay some amount of attention to the road. We showed up at Valley of the Rogue at 10 or 11, I think. Much to our dismay, the loop our site was at was, with one exception, entirely composed of RVs. One of them even had a dude sitting in a chair, watching TV, with a living-room lamp outside.<\/p>\n

By now it should go without saying that the stakes did not go into the ground without a fight. As we ignored the stakes and quietly set up our tent in a big open area next to RVs, Jenny pointed my face at the sky, where one could plainly see the edge of the Milky Way. That, fine sir and\/or madam, is one hell of a sight.<\/p>\n

I decided that since it was such a warm night, and we had such a beautiful view of the sky, we shouldn’t bother with the rain fly and just stare at the stars all night. It would have worked perfectly, if only all the goddamned RVs would shut off their lights. The mesh screen of the tent caught & magnified the nearby light, making the beautiful sky turn into a beautiful haze. If you squinted really hard, you could almost mistake one of the RV’s lights for a second Sun.<\/p>\n

Day 9<\/h2>\n

\"No<\/p>\n

RV parks aren’t enough fun as is. What really makes them shine is the people, or the children of people, or the people that don’t control their children, or their dog. We’re talking like 8 children, “Mommy thinks her vagina is a clown car” people here.. The real sad thing is that they were the others in a tent, and their kids were screaming and shouting at 7 in the morning, and their dog running over and stepping on the edge of my tent.<\/p>\n

Bitch, if I’ve said it once I’ve said it a million times. It is never too late to abort, and so help me, I will give you 8 abortions right now.<\/p>\n

We packed up our stuff, realizing that I hadn’t actually remembered to put the rain fly, its pole or my tent’s bag away the night before. Glad it wasn’t windy out. After breakfast we decided to give the place a chance, and walked down to the river in the direction of a geocache. I’d like to say something positive about the area, however the moment we found the cache we booked it back to the car to fucking leave. It was that great.<\/p>\n

There was another cache at the exit of the park, so we stopped for that too. The exit, on closer inspection, was also a highway rest stop. Interesting location for that, or an interesting location for a state park, I must say. Then we set off for home.<\/p>\n

In the distance we saw something huge. Like, seriously, fuckoff huge- with snow on it<\/a>. Jenny figured it was Mt. Shasta, but fiddling around with my GPS led me to think otherwise. Eventually we got to California’s produce security checkpoint, where I asked what in the hell that big thing was. Jenny immediately pointed out how much better she is than me for being right. She walked home.<\/p>\n

We kept getting closer and closer to it, staring in awe, already making plans to try and camp there sometime in the near future. Shortly past the entrance to Mt. Shasta State Park, we passed a bunch of cool, looking oddly coloured trucks. I took the next exit and headed back toward them, wanting a picture.<\/p>\n

I’m going to take this opportunity to say, whoever owns those trucks, or the lot that they are all displayed fancy-like in, is an asshole. You can see the trucks great from the highway, but they’re in a huge barb wire fenced off area that you can’t get close enough to take pictures at. I ran up along the off-ramp, figuring maybe I’d have a better vantage point there, and I did. Barely. This time, there were TWO barbed fences up. One a few feet in front of the other, so I couldn’t even really put my camera up to the fence, let alone look through the viewfinder as I did it. Screw you, whoever you are. Setting up a bunch of awesome looking trucks and not letting anyone close enough to get a good photo is just mean.<\/p>\n

\"Flat\"<\/a>
What's boring?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Shortly after getting back on the highway, I finally found out why everyone hates Rt. 5. It very quickly becomes farm land, which is basically a bunch of flat, forever, in either green, brown or yellow colours.<\/p>\n

Somewhere in this time we stopped to stretch our legs and get another cache, and my car hit the 10,000 mile mark. Shortly after that I started fearing my gas tank may run dry before I found a gas station. It even got to the point where I turned off the AC and started driving at speeds my car actually said were efficient.<\/p>\n

Between then and now, we eventually managed to get home and I’ve somehow managed to type up a sloppy account of how our vacation went to accompany my photos.<\/p>\n

Speaking of photos, if you haven’t already, LOOK AT THEM<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Also, here’s Jenny’s<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My poor excuse of a journal for our camping trip through the Northern California, Oregon & Washington coast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[62,30,55,59,53,60,57,56,58,32,61,54],"class_list":["post-1506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fun-stuffs","tag-bees","tag-california","tag-camping","tag-hoh","tag-oregon","tag-rainforest","tag-redwoods","tag-state-parks","tag-tillicum","tag-travel","tag-valley-of-the-rogue","tag-washington"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pyyGP-oi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/awesomelymodest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/awesomelymodest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/awesomelymodest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awesomelymodest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awesomelymodest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1506"}],"version-history":[{"count":85,"href":"https:\/\/awesomelymodest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1648,"href":"https:\/\/awesomelymodest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506\/revisions\/1648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/awesomelymodest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awesomelymodest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awesomelymodest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}