For my next trip of the season, I headed out all by myself for the first time ever! Dave was doing a play, and I already had this club rally scheduled, and I wanted to go. I feel like it’s not fair to make Dave feel bad because I have to just sit home when he’s in a play, and it’s not fair for me to have to skip doing things I want to do while he does his stuff. So he gave me some lessons on backing up the little beast, and I packed up and headed out on my own.

First stop was in Newport, Oregon for lunch where it was so foggy I couldn’t even see the sea!

I had planned my trip to take this little break, stretch my legs and have lunch at our favorite spot at Nye Beach. I was a little nervous leaving the trailer parked over by the performing arts center, but it looked like the easiest place to park a trailer. Luckily it was still there when I got back.

I got to the park in Florence, OR, and the hosts had warned us all the night before that a scheduling mix up had changed us from each having our own spot, to sharing a big parking lot. This actually worked really well. All the tow vehicles were parked over in a corner, and we got to camp in a semi-wagon-wheel formation. It was great! The host helped me back into my spot, and we were all set!

I was the oldest trailer there by far that weekend. The whole point was to be a boondocking rally, which was more nerve wracking for some of the campers with new trailers who were used to having hookups. I was used to boondocking anyway, and have very simple needs, so it was no biggie for me. It got a little warm one day, but I popped open the windows and put on the awnings, and it was cool and comfy inside.

I went South on the first day and explored the dunes a little bit. I huffed and puffed my way to the top of a dune for a view up and down the coast, and even saw whales spouting not too far out to sea!

Then I headed down to the marina for lunch at a chowder shack on the marina, which was delicious, and walked around on the docks looking at the cool boats.

Also watched this bird successfully catching it’s lunch.

I have this plan in the back of my head that someday I am going to do a photography project where I go photograph all the arch bridges in Oregon, particularly up and down the coast.

I finished up my day at an overlook near my campground, and you can just see the dunes stretching off into the distance. What a unique part of the beach! This is very different from the Northern Oregon beaches that I am used to!

The next morning I headed out early to visit Heceta Head Lighthouse. I wanted to beat the weekend crowds, and it worked, there were very few people at the beach. I wasn’t expecting this, but there were tidepools to visit, and a couple volunteer rangers hanging out to answer questions.

A few years ago we heard a lot about the starfish suffering from a wasting disease that was destroying the populations off the Oregon coast, so it was nice to see these big healthy specimens. These were quite large, bigger than my hand! The rangers said they are recovering nicely.

I think they are really cool looking!

I hiked up the short path to the lighthouse. First you come to the old keepers house, which is run as a B & B now. It was a really cute house.

And then finally to the lighthouse, which wasn’t open yet because I was too early! I saw the ranger going up the hill as I was going back down!

I headed up to Yachats to visit a popular bakery (the line was out to the street!), had lunch in a historic pub, and then drove back towards camp, stopping at every wayside along the way. The clouds parted and it was beautiful! Also, the crowds weren’t nearly as bad here as they are on the Northern beaches. I think it’s worth the extra drive to have a little more solitude! This was on a beautiful summer Saturday!

That was the whole adventure. Every evening we had Happy Hour back at camp, played some cornhole, and sat around the fire after dinner chatting. The next morning folks started heading out and I headed out fairly early too, just so I wouldn’t feel like I had to rush. I stopped at a rest stop along the way, and another random Airstreamer pulled in after me and just waved to check and make sure I was ok with my little vintage trailer! Very kind! Later I stopped at another rest stop to cook some lunch in the trailer, and one of my fellow campers stopped right after me and said hello.

Finally I made it home and backed the trailer into the driveway all by myself, and it only took 3 tries! My first solo trip was over. It’s always more fun if Dave comes along, but it’s nice to know I can go out on my own if I have to also!

With our newly replaced windows, we headed up to our reserved campsite at Fort Casey on Whidbey Island. We were a bit worried we would loose it, as the campground was fully booked, and we were arriving a day late, but the nice lady at WA State Parks assured us it should remain ours as long as we arrived by 2pm, so we made an effort to scoot up there with a bit of expediency.

We got there and got our spot in the back row, furthest from the water, and it was..unimpressive. We didn’t have hookups, and we didn’t have a view, in fact our door faced a row of bushes away from the water. And there were three rows of RVs to look past to see the water. So, not as exciting as I had hoped. I had gotten the impression online that the rows were tiered, but the park was quite flat. So it was ok when we first parked, and we had a nice view across the Sound, but it quickly filled in.

Once we arrived we went and explored Fort Casey a bit. We had seen the Fort itself last time we were there, with it’s massive WWII gun turrets pointed out over the Sound. This time we went by the Admiralty Head Lighthouse, which is a pretty old Lighthouse, no longer in use.

Once we were settled we had a pretty nice trip, exploring around the island. We went to a beach and watched eagles fishing.

We also saw this:

We had a chance to chat with some fellow Airstreamers back at the park, since there were 5 Airstrems there! A Basecamp, two newer trailers, and a couple Class Bs down at the end! That’s a lot of Airstreams! Chilling out reading a book one afternoon I heard people walking by saying ‘look at the old one, it’s so little!’ That’s us alright!

Fort Casey is right next to the Coupeville/Port Townsend Ferry, which was pretty exciting.

We did take the Ferry over to Port Townsend for a day, which was fun. Drove all around, looked at the cool vintage buildings and neat little houses. We also drove out to Point Wilson LIghthouse. I wish we could have stayed for a perfect shot, since we had such dreary skies. It looks like you could get a really neat photo with the right skies and Mt Baker in the background.

My photographic goal for the trip was to get at least one really good photo with a lot of negative space. I kind of lean towards that style anyway, and then this old house caught my eye, out by itself on the end of a row, right up against the ocean, with this beautiful big field in front of it, and not a cloud in the sky.

Perfect.

So ends another fun little trip in our trailer. Sometimes I feel like folks want to know more about camping in a vintage Airstream, but it was nothing to talk about, since everything worked, it was just a cozy place to read and take naps, and cook dinners between explorations, and it kept us warm at night.

On the way home we stopped for doughnuts, and easily fit trailer and truck into two parking spots end to end, which is the greatest arguement for keeping this trailer anyone could make. Easy peasy, and we were off on our way in no time. Whidbey Island was a real treat, very beautiful, lots to see and do, and I’m sure we will be back.

First trip of the year, just a short run from home to see if everything was working. It was! Trailer kept us warm and cozy even though we had constant downpours. There was a tiny little drip at one of the windows, but no big deal. It was raining like a car wash outside, so not too surprising.

I had intended to do some fishing, because in the winter the perch and crappie all come hang out in the canals like the one behind the campground. I came here for a WDFW fishing clinic a couple years ago and caught a bunch of fish! But the constant rain made fishing sound like less fun than what we decided to do, which is go explore the nearby towns of Castle Rock and Longview.

Longview has a neat museum that covers the history of the area, and quite a bit about the Mt St Helens eruption in 1980. The fellow at the museum was happy to answer questions and come by to add his knowledge to the exhibits when he wasn’t busy.

It felt really weird to finally be out camping and chatting with neighbors, and checking out each other’s trailers after all the time spent avoiding people during covid, but hey, we’re all vaccinated now, right? Well, so far, so good! The folks next to us had one of those faux ‘Vintage’ trailers, which looked really comfy inside. Looked vintage, but with all the modern goodies. I was a little jealous!