Abandoned vehicles and a foggy forest

Oregon has some great state forests which are treated very similarly to their bigger brother, the national forests – at least when it comes to their allowance of dispersed camping. We needed a place to spend our work week again, so Kerri set her keen eye to work on the maps. It didn’t take long before she found a half-dozen possible spots in the state forest land north of Tillamook, Oregon. We spent the rest of our Sunday exploring the gravel roads, and the spurs, of said forest.

The first spot we came across would have been great, if it had not been for one of the locals hauling out their old travel trailer and dumping in in the spot. Not only was the travel trailer gutted and destroyed, it was loaded up with bags and bags of household trash. Seriously people!

We kept exploring, more gravel roads, and more pushing through the ever grasping berry bushes along the smaller spur roads. We would find a fair spot here and there, but one of two things would keep us from staying; either the foliage was too thick and we would not get any solar, or the locals have dumped their trash. So, we would move on to hopefully fond another spot.

Finally, late in the afternoon we came upon a clearing. It was plainly clear that the locals use this area for some target shooting, but it had open sky for the solar and even a view to the sunset- and an abandoned (probably stolen) burned out car. Even without the fiery wreck, it wasn’t really a very pretty spot, but it’ll do for the night so we could explore more the following day.

During the evening we had come up with a few more spots to explore further down the road but it didn’t take us long to find our spot for the week. Barely another half-mile, down a steep and tight spur road, we dead-ended into a spot on the side of the mountain, with a spectacular view over the city of Tillamook to our South. Surrounded by berry bushes and a whole lot of solitude, this is where we would settle into for the week, knowing there was no chance at all of having any visitors. Alas, within just a few hours of our arrival a truck pulled up behind us. It was a local Sheriff deputy, who was not only surprised that we were down this particular road, but happy for us to have such a private spot with the view. He was a nice enough fella just doing his job. We parted ways with a hand shake and a ‘safe travels’.

The four of us settled in for the week. Each day we would work, and each evening we would sit out with a cocktail and watch the fog roll in to cover up Tillamook below us. In the mornings we would watch as the fog would roll back out. The dogs hung out all day, every day. Byron slept, but Moose was on the hunt, killing – and bringing home – two rodents on one evening alone. He was so proud I couldn’t do anything but trade him a treat for the carcass so I could dispose of it.

The temperatures were cool and pleasant with all the solar we needed. It was only on the final day did the fog decide to include us in the fun, covering over us from the previous night through the morning we packed up and left. It was a nice farewell to a great spot. Thanks state forest… and farewell.

A post shared by Kerri McHale🌲🌵🌊🇺🇸🇨🇦🇲🇽 (@asolojourner) on Jul 23, 2018 at 9:23pm PDT

A post shared by Kerri McHale🌲🌵🌊🇺🇸🇨🇦🇲🇽 (@asolojourner) on Jul 26, 2018 at 7:13am PDT