5/9/17 update

Hey y'all, so we left South Beach State Park on the 9th of May exactly 1 month from when we started this adventure. We have had a lot of fun so far, as well as some boring rainy days too. 

We rolled into Umpqua Lighthouse State Park the afternoon of the 9th with the plan to stay one night and then head towards Brookings, OR or Cresent City, CA to hang out until the end of the month..... State Park staying is just spending to much money per night. We are going to RV Park it here on the west coast for the summer, where it's a good bit cooler than inland, then head for the Texas coast come Sept/Oct so we can make central Florida by Christmas. 

As far as a review of this Park, Umpqua Lighthouse State Park, it's very small with only 54 spots total half of them being tent or yurts. There is a 1 mile hiking trail around a small lake that borders one side of the park, and a 2-3 mile drive to the fee-parking lot ($4/day or $30/yr). The biggest bonus is that the Oregon Dune Recreation Area is right here with 100's of acres of sand dune riding with ATV/UTV rental places very close. It's pretty nice with clean bathrooms and showers, paved spaces and trails to the bathrooms. Lots of 'skeeters though.....

Tomorrow we head south, I will load this when we have internet.

May 10, 2017

So we are here. 150 or so miles later and we are here. Harbor RV Anchorage in Cresent City, CA. Yup......after 10 YEARS of saying I would never return to Commie-forn-i-stan, I am in the state..... and it's still a messed up state. We were stopped at the border to be asked if we had fruit, veggies, or firewood. Every vehicle is asked this. Shanesta was asked the same thing behind me, and she was in the car. Then we had to show our receipt for chicken and chips when leaving Walmart.... but that was probably because we were just carrying them vs having them in a bag.... we didn't want to pay for the plastic bag...... state law is now that you have to buy the bags. What a jacked up law! But then it is cali.....a jacked up state.

On a different note, the RV Park we are in is right on the beach. We are going to stay here for the summer, space rent is $500/month but that includes electric, water, and sewer, as well as showers and toilets. That's less than half of what state parks run for a month ( and you have to change parks every two weeks) and should let us save up some decent money for the trip East. Oh, and the perks include only a road separates us from the beach. We will be spending a lot of time out there! We are going to stay here until the beginning of Sept., so to my buddies down in Yuba City/Marysville, this is as close as I am gonna get, so if you want to visit, come on up! I hear it's only a 6hr drive, or so. That means you too Battle! 

Oh, we saw 2 skoolies today while driving. Both were short buses and while one was just painted white, the other was all painted up and had "Alaska or Bust" in front where it used to say School Bus. They were both heading North while we were headed south, so we didn't have the chance to meet them, but we both beeped and waved at each other! It was the first official sighting of another Skoolie since we talked with a couple who had just started their travels in Manzanita, Wa. Very cool!

May 12th update, we found a really cool surf shop here in town, and the owners let us borrow a few surfing dvd's, so the boys are dying to go surfing tomorrow, and are non-stop watching them! They have a board that would be perfect for Lucas, it would be a perfect belly board for him, as well as a good board for TJ once he can stand up regularly on his board, but we gotta sell some stuff that we don't use so we can buy it. $250 isn't cheap for us!

As always, I will load this when we have wifi access. ( none to speak of here in the RV Park, might have to get a signal booster, to snag some free wifi from somewhere.....there's a McD's just down the road a bit.......) God Bless!

Nehalem Bay, Beverly Beach and South Beach State Parks

Hey y'all, sorry for the long time between posts, but we ran out of Internet really quickly, so we had to wait. Since we are new to this lifestyle, we aren't completely sure of our budget quite yet, so we had to make sure we didn't "blow" money we needed! Anyways, we are at McD's in South Beach, Oregon. Here's whats been going on.....

On May 1st, we left Nehalem Bay State Park. We had stayed the max of 2 consecutive weeks, and had to move. So we packed up and headed farther south. The good/bad news (99% good) is we have our car now. Shanesta's brother Sam and our Brother Jacob brought it to us on the 29th. Thanks again guys!

So now the dirty......the 1% bad news is we now have to pay a stupid $7/night extra car fee if we park the car by the bus.... and only because we can't tow the car..... if it was towed by the bus, it would be free. I think we need to have our Jeep fixed pretty quickly then we can ditch the car and save $200/month in extra vehicle fees! The 99% good news is we can now get into many more places to visit/see that we wouldn't be able to in just the bus. (like this McD's parking lot). We can also drive out of the beach towns to grocery stores that don't charge $17 for a whole (and tiny) chicken that you still have to cook! Example, last week while we were in the area, we took the car to Cannon Beach,OR ( a cool little town about 20 or so miles away from the Park we were in with tiny little streets with what seemed to hold the entire west coasts worth of people and cars) to see Haystack Rock which was used in the awesome movie Goonies. It was pretty cool to see it and all the tide pools full of life in front of it. I would have ran over someone or something trying to get the bus through there!!!

So anyways I want to do a quick final review of that park, having had 2 weeks there. Once again it's a great park. The bathrooms and showers are cleaned daily (which is a good thing with all the people that use them). The roads are kept debris-free. The 2.5mile mostly flat bike path isn't nearly as long after two weeks of bike riding back and forth to Manzanita! The staff, both the Park Rangers and Volunteers are really nice, though I think I would like the free "rent" the volunteers get for the 3 days per week that they are actually on duty versus completely gone in their pickup, or "tossing back cold ones"... I might find someone to talk to about doing that in the near future.... I can use a leaf blower for a while to get free space rent (basically).... not the drinking part!

Sorry I digress, anyways after 2weeks there, we would definitely recommend the Park to anyone, but would suggest that during the off season, don't make a reservation and just come on out. I say don't make a reservation because while we have neighbors 3-4spaces away right now, but most of the time people are 5+ spaces away (in the non-reservation D,E, and F Loops), the Reservation Only A,B, and C Loops are packed full of people. We don't hear any parties over hear, where as when on a night walk the other day, there was a big party going on over there. I can't imagine trying to sleep through that one!

Anyways, we know we are going to spend a lot of time in  state parks, but the free water, sewer, electric, and hot showers are kind of spoiling us! 

After a Nehalem Bay, we went to Beverly Beach State Park, and while it's decent, I wasn't to impressed, it was a 3/4mile car drive for the boys to go surf, it had a rain forest theme..... The road is paved, but the parking pads and bathroom paths are just gravel, and we had a small pond directly behind our site, so we "enjoyed" a free frog concert each evening for a few hours. The bathrooms and showers were clean and well lit, and the trails were easy to follow, even if you have to kick out a handful of gravel from your sandals/shower shoes during each trip. So just a few days later we moved (on Thursday) to South Beach State Park. 

South Beach State Park is very similar to Nehalem Bay State Park, with paved pads and roads, it does have gravel paths to the restrooms/showers, but the gravel is large enough it doesn't get in your shoes (which is a good thing since even though I have been trying to do as much bare footing as possible to toughen up my feet, I still have wussy feet!) The only downer about here is they seem to have a mosquito problem..... might just be our area in the park, we will have to see about that.

Ok, so that's all for now. Not sure when we will be able to post this, we ran out of Internet a while ago, so hopefully we can find a place to update everyone and everything today, since it's raining again.

God Bless y'all, and please keep praying for us!

P.S. sorry no pictures yet, we are still trying to figure out this laptop....seems to be an internet only laptop.... kinda weird....