South Beach State Park, Summer ’16

Back in late July and early August, we finished a long trip down and up the Oregon coast. Near the end of the trip: South Beach State Park (in Newport).

Here is a thing to know about South Beach State Park: if you want to walk on the beach, you must traverse a stretch of dunes with very soft sand to get there (and to get back to the campground). It can be tiring, especially if you’re carrying a weary terrier.

Sooz grabbed this pic with her phone while we crossed the dunes. These phone cameras are amazingly good.

The beach itself is lovely, running south for many miles–the north end of the park borders a jetty that helps shepherd the tidal currents between Yaquina Bay and the Pacific.

See, there’s that jetty I mentioned. I think it’s forbidden to walk out there, due to danger of being swept away by vicious waves. Does it look like the horizon is tilted a little in this pic? It does, yeah, I know. This is because we’re only a couple of hours from Portland here, and, as you know, Portland is slightly off-center. In a good way!

You can get to the beach with a little less effort if you find the right path — the ADA-compliant one that leads to this nifty boardwalk.

Have we mentioned that Tyler, the Cairn terrier, likes “defined paths?” He does. Sidewalks too. Prefers, I suppose, to be clear on which way to go. He loved this boardwalk, though we did have to carry him at times because it was too hot for his delicate feet. Yes, delicate feet. Maybe Tyler is a little off-center, too.

There are no pictures here of the campground. Why is this? Because, although the campground is perfectly fine and lovingly maintained by those trusty Oregon State Park rangers, it’s really just a place to set up and sleep so you can be at the beach. It’s fine, but unremarkable as a campground. In a good way!

It’s fair to say that these beach campgrounds are packed in the summertime. Why wouldn’t they be? Still, they are not the place to go for solitude and quiet contemplation, unless you bring a blindfold and noise-suppressing headphones. They are good, however, for people-watching, and possibly social experiments you could try, like asking people who they plan to vote for. Go ahead, try that. No, don’t.

We spent most of this 3-night stay visiting with friends and relatives, and there’s no reason to drag them down to our level by featuring them here. We did get a chance to walk to the jetty and back one day, though; there’s a nice multi-purpose trail leading to it.

They say you can’t push a terrier around. But they’re wrong.

One morning we quietly packed up and headed north and, finally, away from the coast, toward our final stop before home. It was L. L. “Stub” Stewart State Park, west of Portland and, we would later learn, just south of the poorest route choice we’ve made to-date.

Yes. When we left Stewart Park, we kept going north. This was an error.

No. You don’t want to tow anything on this road. More on that later.