Coastal Route to Monte Rio

Hello dear readers. We need to bring you up to speed – if not up to the present day, at least to our present location! So let’s connect the dots between Portland and Monte Rio!

The series of state parks that we stayed in on the Road to Rio all had to be booked six months in advance. That took some planning, but was well worth it.

Aug 1 – 4 Nehalem Bay State Park, OR

As the rest of Oregon was heating up into the 90s and beyond, we headed coastward. We watched Twyla’s thermometer drop 30 degrees as we approached the Pacific. Wow! Our first in a series of Pacific Beach State Parks was Nehalem for four glorious days. It has a good campground with decent sites, though there isn’t much vegetation between them. Beach access was easy, and there were some nice paths and trails. This came in handy one day when the wind was severe on the beach. We just took a nice trail to the bay side of the park and nestled in.

Aug 5-7: Bullards Beach State Park; Bandon, OR

A little further south along Hwy 101, still in Oregon, we arrived at Bullard’s Beach State Park near Bandon. Here the sites were far more secluded, and the bathrooms were tidier – hats off to good camp hosts! It is a short drive to the little town of Bandon. It is a beachy-tourist town, but somehow hasn’t given itself completely over to it (I’m looking at you, Cannon Beach). One afternoon the beach was so cold and windy (this is while the rest of Oregon was suffering a heat wave) that we holed up in a few dive bars and watched the Olympics.

We happened to be in Bandon during their semi-monthly sand labyrinth – what a treat! A group of local artists create a gorgeous sand art labyrinth during low tide, and the public has a chance to walk through it for a couple of hours before the tide comes in and washes the canvas clean.

All in all: Bandon was a huge hit with us! 5 stars!

Aug 8-10: Sue-Meg State Park; Trinidad, CA

Continuing on Hwy 101 into California, you come to Sue-Meg State Park (FYI Meg is pronounced “May”). Hahaaaa wow, this campground was kinda weird. As you’ll see in the captions below, we had a really lovely short stop here last year, and it was high on our list of places to return to. We booked a site for 3 nights, but it was in a very different part of the campground, down the hill from the cliffside, and it was a completely different experience. Most of our stay was foggy and very damp and quite chilly! Not all that appealing to be outside. Plus our neighbors were super loud, and the nearby bathrooms were pretty spartan. Fortunately we could set up our tent and turn on the propane heater, and we discovered that the bathroom up the hill was MUCH nicer. And finally our last day there was sunny and gorgeous. Ultimately, I think we’d still recommend this spot, but we sure have some strong preferences on camp sites!

Aug 11 – 13 Burlington Campground, Humboldt State Park

For our final stop before Monte Rio, we decided to leave the coast and spend some time in the Redwoods. Right alongside the “Avenue of the Giants” (scenic route alongside Hwy 101) and adjacent to the Humboldt Redwoods State Park Visitor Center is this sweet campground in the midst of the trees. The Visitor Center was super-handy for Kayla to get some work done, but the rest of the time we gave ourselves neck-aches looking at these beauties.

August 14: Monte Rio

We drove a few more hours south on Hwy 101; just north of Santa Rosa we veered west and followed the Russian River to the little hamlet of Monte Rio, where we’ve been ever since. Coming soon in a future post: more photos of this glorious area and the “geriatric zoo” we’re caring for, but here’s a bit of evidence that we’re in wine country: