June 16 to July 1, 2007 - Ilwaco/Long Beach, WA

Note that Bill took three flights in a Cessna 172 so there are many aerial photos of the region from the Long Beach Peninsula of Washington south to Nehalem Bay, OR.  Some of these photos have reflections and such in them from the airplane windows, but Bill figured the views were worth posting the photos.   Each web page will take about 15 minutes to download with dial up internet and there are many pages.

We got an early start on June 16th because we wanted a choice of campsites at our destination.  Don and Nicky pulled out about 7:45AM on their way to Newport, OR and we got going about 8:45AM and headed north.  We took I-5 until the south part of Portland and then worked our way to US26 going west.  We hooked up to US101 north just south of Seaside.  Here is downtown Seaside through the windshield:

Coming up to the Astoria bridge into Washington State:

Taking the bridge:

Our campsite at Eagles Nest RV Resort in Ilwaco, WA.

Diane's parents are volunteering at Fort Stevens State Park in Hammond, OR, at the mouth of the Columbia River. 

Diane's cousin, Vickie, owns a bead and craft store in Chinook, WA, M&D Designs, so we met up with Diane's parents there. 

Diane's parents' campsite at Fort Stevens State Park the morning of the 17th:

Bill had camped at this state park when he was young.  In many ways it hasn't changed.

Diane's parents' new sofa bed in their motorhome.  Because of the decor changes Diane will be making many replacement plastic canvas items to match the new colors.

We took a day trip to Cannon Beach, OR on June 17th

Diane's father has his Cessna 172 at Astoria Airport so we took a Flight Seeing Trip June 19th Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

June 20 Day Trip to Cape Mears State Park

Bill helped get the Wi-Fi working between the house and shop for Vickie.  Linksys tried to make life easy for the person with wizards, but the wizard didn't work and Bill had to manually get the wireless router working.   The wizard for the Linksys range extender also had problems but Bill finally got it all working reliably before we left the area.   He did have to replace the stock antennas on the wireless router with larger and higher powered ones.

Afterwards we went to dinner in Astoria with Gregg and Rosalie.  On the way back to their campsite we went to the beach at Fort Stevens State Park with the Peter Iredale shipwreck:

Video of kids playing by the shipwreck as 720x480 WMV video (1.10MB)

June 23rd we started the day by checking out the Saturday Market in Ilwaco:

The catch from a sturgeon charter:

These ducks were hanging out around the booths:

Video of the ducks(720x480 WMV 1.45MB)

We also visited with Colleen, who we know from the shop, who sells her jewelry and such at the market.

Then Bill went for another Flight June 23 Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Family friends Bill and Donzella came to town so we spent time as six, the three men in one car and the women in another.

June 24 Touring of Fort Stevens

Flight June 25 Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Views from Eagle's Nest

June 26th we moved to NACO Long Beach.  Because the motorhome could not make a right turn out of Eagle's Nest, it was a 2-1/2 mile drive instead of a mile.

Don and Nicky are very close by, we can see the back of their motorhome through our windshield:

Cape Disappointment State Park

June 28th, Thursday, things got interesting.  Diane's father, Gregg, had redness and swelling around his navel and ended up in Portland in the hospital for a CAT scan to decide if he was getting an emergency hernia surgery that evening if the bowels were involved, or a more ordinary hernia surgery if the bowels were not involved.  At 10:30PM they found the bowels were not involved and much of the credit goes to the doctor at Seaside Urgent Care who pushed it back in.  The surgery was Saturday evening and Rosalie got back to the motorhome at midnight to rest and make sure their cat was fed and his litter box clean.   The next morning she brought Gregg back to the motorhome and we helped tear down camp and Rosalie drove the motorhome behind the store where we helped set up, including internet.  Here is the motorhome.

In all the excitement we did visit with Don and Nicky and had a very nice brunch at The Ark in Oysterville, WA with them.  Since Nicky took a class at the shop we also had time to visit with them there.

Diane's parents were supposed to fly the Cessna down to California Sunday to visit family.  Instead they left on Monday in the car with Rosalie driving while Gregg took it easy.

We did end up eating out a lot during our two-and-a-half weeks in the area.  We revisited the Pig-n-Pancake in Astoria, the Lightship in Long Beach and the 42nd Street Cafe in Seaview.  We also added The Ark in Oysterville, Long Beach Thai, El Compadre in Long Beach, McNel's English Pub in Ilwaco, Chinook Restaurant in Chinook, Doogers in Astoria and Camp 18 in Seaside to our restaurant list.

The weather was mostly quite nice with most days in the 60s, pleasant nights, and only some rain.

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