The Dog Days 333 (Part 1)

2 weeks after the Newberry Event, we had a family trip planned. With the fuel and cooling issues presumably solved, we embarked on a 333? mile loop through Eugene, Florence, Newport and Lincoln City. Gmaps thinks it was 333 miles; so, we'll assume that's correct and that should explain the title. Anyway, today's post covers that late summer run, or should I say, the first half of it. As usual, I'll mask the names of minors with a single letter and the * when I mention speed or distance refers to my inaccurate speedometer (See the "Clock Turns" section within the 4Peaks 2019 - Road Report).

The Plan
Maybe I should start with some context. I have 2 sisters; neither live in Oregon. Both were coming to visit, though, so the greater family saw opportunity for something big. My brother Rob and his wife started the fun with a 3-day weekend (Fri-Sun) camping reservation at Honeyman State Park. Rob's wife Kirst camped there many times as a kid, so this was a throw-back for her. They reserved a bunch of sites all backed up on one another for whichever family units among family and friends wanted to join. My younger sister Em, her husband Sun and her two kids (I and K3) were in, as were we. The rest of the spots filled with Rob and Kirst's kids' (A and N) friends' families. Once we had our spot assigned, I reserved the night before so we could arrive whenever we wanted to after 4PM on Thursday.

Following 3 (or 4) days of coastal camping, the families moseyed up the coast to a rented house in Newport. We would be joined by T, my parents, my brother Eric with his 2 daughters (K4 and K5 - yes we have that many kids whose name starts with K) and my sister Rebecca with her husband Chris. All in, we would peak at around 17 people for one night to celebrate Dad's birthday, but I'll get to the Newport stuff in another post.

Drive at Night

This trip starts like so many: at night. Boo and I worked our regular jobs on departure day, so we weren't really getting things going until Hapy Hour, 530PM local time. We had loosely packed Hapy the days and nights before, and most of the regular gear had been left in there from the Newberry run. We added the washtubs forgotten on that trip, as well as clothing bags, sleeping bags, an extra tent for the boys (K2 and C were joining us) and a pair of large foam mats for the boys to use to cushion their sleep. We had been delaying a grocery store trip, and still hadn't gotten around to it, so we just went through the cupboards and fridge, grabbing anything and everything that looked edible, tossing it into one of the three coolers (one cold, one not-so-cold and one for beverages). I had hoped to leave by 10:PM, and we were pulling out of the driveway, caravan-style (Boo driving the JettaWagon named K'Lack with K2, and me driving Hapy w/C) around 9.

Privacy Screen for Honeyman

By 9:PM on a Thursday, the streets and highways in suburban Portland are fairly empty. We filled fuel tanks and got ice at the corner store before heading to the highway. The evening air was cool, and Hapy hummed along, seeming to enjoy the deserted highway. Unlike our last trip down OR217 / I-5 for Newberry (See Newberry 2019 - Getting There), there were no crowds, no crawling traffic through Wilsonville. Quite the contrary, we were able to run at over 60mph* and cleared the greater Portland area easily. As we passed the Wilsonville exit, Boo called from the lead car, recommending road-snax. We pulled off at the Aurora truck stop, Hapy's temperature rarely getting above 185*F (peaked at 188*F for a moment as we pulled off the Interstate). We split Popeye's Chicken and a plastic-sealed chef's salad. With some form of energy drink in everyone's hand, we set back out to the freeway, this time with Hapy leading.

It is interesting how 15 years of driving the bus without music tends to continue even after a nice stereo is installed. Almost the entire drive to and from Newberry was without music, choosing to listen to Hapy's engine and just think. Now, on this trip, C and I talked without the radio on. C and I haven't really seen each other much over the last few years, so having him on this trip, sitting beside me for all of the driving meant a lot to me. Based on the fact that he didn't have ear buds in, I think the same could be said for him. To be fair, C started living with us nearly full time shortly after school let out in June, so, while we hadn't seen him much before that, we have been treated (and I mean that genuinely) to sharing a home with him for a few months now.

Honeyman SP map

We passed through some clouds at road-level south of Albany and through the interchange in Eugene from I-5 thru OR-569 to OR-126, adding damp to the windscreen. I call it "clouds at road-level" because it wasn't actually raining, and it wasn't fog. I believe it was actually clouds down to the earth. It was quite surreal, especially alone on the freeway passing through nowhere land mid-Willamette valley farm country. OR-126 had a short delay due to some flagger-protected construction, but even the ensuing drive through the coast range was an easy run for Hapy. The route only had a handful of short inclines, with most of the driving being downhill. Still, Hapy's temperature didn't get above 190*F as we cleared the range and hit the coastline in Florence. We turned south on US-101 and within minutes, we were pulling into Honeyman State Park and backing into our (reserved) campsite. It was now 2:AM.

Honeyman State Park

above us, only sky

That first night was actually one of the most efficient load-in efforts I can remember with 2 kids. We started with setting up the the 10x10 EZ-up canopy over the large thick-topped picnic table. Then, Boo and K2 set up the massive tent for the boys while C and I unloaded the bus onto the picnic table, under the canopy. We unloaded just enough for Boo and I to get into the rock-n-roll bed (so we could sleep), making sure everything was under cover in case of rain or heavy dew.

I was the first one up a few hours later that morning, so I cleared out some space on the table, set up the stove and made french-press coffee. I puttered around, coffee in one hand, some piece of gear in the other, slowly making our space work until Boo awoke. Between us, we set up the rest of the space: bus canopy, new area rug, the kitchen, even a drying line and hammock between a pair of nearby trees.

Hammock'd Boo

I had visited Honeyman State Park many years earlier with Hapy and the boys, but they were much younger then. I rooted around the blog for a post about that trip, but didn't find one. Odd, I know some of the first pictures I took while driving Hapy were on that trip. Perhaps that trip pre-dated the blog and it's in my old paper log. Anyway, Honeyman is on the northern-most edge of a, maybe, 50 mile long section of the Oregon Coast that is covered in massive sand dunes. By massive, I mean like upwards of 100 feet high and they run from the water's edge at least a mile or more inland. This is an ATV'ers paradise, and on my last visit to Honeyman, that was very clear. The sound of ATV's being cleaned, tuned, ridden and repaired echoed through the campground then. Not this time, though. New rules prohibit all ATV activity inside the campground. One unique upside to Honeyman I had completely forgotten about was the complete lack of wind. Yes, there's a spot on the Oregon Coast where there isn't wind; it is blocked by those massive sand dunes. You would think that no wind means lots of insects (like the Carolina outer banks), but that's not the case. Still, virtually no biting bugs. Love Oregon.

There were other upgrades. For example, the park rents out sandboards for sliding on the dunes. Boo and K2 tried it, and had a fun time of it. Unlike snowboarding, though, there were no lifts so the better the run, the longer the subsequent climb back up. When we visited before, the park rented paddleboats for use on the freshwater lake. Those were still available, but now there were 1 and 2-person kayaks available as well. Boo and I tried a 2-person while K2 took another.

C, N and K3 playing

C has been spending most of his free time working on skate-boarding. So, while he didn't try the sandboards or kayaks, he did find the tarmac'd roads in the park suitable for skating. He even found a small spot where the pavement was pushed up by a tree-trunk, forming a small ramp so he could bang some aerial trick-work. In each of the 3 days he would put in at least five 20-minute sweat-producing sessions working his board. When he wasn't doing that, he was playing with the camp kid cousins who have evolved from make-believe to throwing a football. Everyone grows up, I guess. K3 and N would come over as soon as they saw C arise from his tent asking him to play football. C never said "no", but at least once gave them a "gimme a few minutes". Seeing that he was barely vertical, and only awake for a couple of minutes, that was quite a civil response. Even then, he would be playing with them within 10 minutes. He just needed his morning Yerba Mate.

Two weeks earlier it was the new moon, so this weekend was the full moon. Boo and I took full advantage and took a moonlit walk on the dunes. The white sand glowed, illuminating everything into a semi-daylight. If you looked away from the moon and the sand long enough, you could see thousands of stars as well.

Pack Out
Our visit ended too soon, though. Just as we were getting comfortable with the camp set up, the location of the flush-bathrooms and showers and the beautiful surroundings, it was Sunday, and our reservations concluded. Boo got up extra early, and grabbed a few things that we wouldn't need in Newport, but were not actively in use... like the hibachi and the empty cooler, and took off for Portland to pick up "the folks" to take them to Newport. I watched her go, and then started slowly breaking camp.

By the time C and K2 awoke, everything was taken down and stowed except their tent, their things inside it, the coolers of food and a few odds and ends. I encouraged them to grab something to eat and then pack up, and that was met with varied enthusiasm. Their things found their way into the bus, and the tent was packed away, but K2 had decided not to eat, and after some activity, he was unable to participate any longer because of that choice. We parked him in the bus next to the coolers and packed around him until it was time for our farewells.

I'll cut the story here and pick up next week with the trip to Newport, happenings there, and the drive back home. Thanks, as always, for following along-