Day 58 – May 7 – Prospect, Oregon

It was another WOW day!  With great sadness we left the Chinook RV Park campground this morning and started our way towards Crater Lake National Park.  The campground was nice; we had great neighbors, views of eagles just out the door, and an ever-changing variety of other birds (ducks, seagulls, and so on).  But it was time to move, so we set out for a Wal-Mart in Grants Pass, Oregon to spend the night.

We had to drive to Crescent City on highway 101 and then catch 199 into Oregon.  We stopped at the beach just south of Crescent City and walked along the water’s edge for about 30 minutes.  Dorrie was looking for shells and rocks to add to her collection of Arkansas diamond mine rocks and “sea glass”.  The beach is beautiful and gave us one last look at the Battery Point Lighthouse off in the distance.

Crescent City Beach

 

One last view of the Battery Point Lighthouse from the beach

Highway 199 runs through some large redwood trees along with a lot of smaller redwoods.  The road curves around the bigger trees, so about the fastest we could drive was 30 to 40 miles per hour.  Every once in a while we would come to a really big tree right on the edge of the road.

The road started to follow a river; we had the river on one side straight down about 75 feet and a mountain or bluff on the other side.  We stopped several times to take pictures of the Smith River.  Dorrie wanted to feel the water to see how cold it would be, but none of the pull-offs provided a good place to walk to the water.  Finally we saw a sign for beach access.   We stopped and took the steps down to a path that lead to a very small beach – maybe 20 feet long.  The water was not as cold as she expected, but it was cool and clear.  While driving along you could see the bottom of the river almost all the time, except when it was cascading over rocks.  I wish I had the words to describe the scenery we experienced on that drive – around every curve was a sight to make you gasp.

Look at the clear water 

Smith River

 

We made it to Grants Pass just before 3 o’clock and looked for a place to eat.  We decided on a Denny’s and had a leisurely meal, not wanting to get to Wal-Mart too soon in the day.  After about an hour, we parked in the Wal-Mart lot next to a sign that said no RV overnight parking.  We had some shopping to do and while in the store Mary asked if we could spend the night on the lot.  She was told we could, the city had an ordinance against overnight parking and that was why the signs were up in the parking lot.

Back at the camper we got to talking and figured out we were not as far from Crater Lake as we thought and that we could easily reach a state park about 25 miles from Crater Lake if we started right away.  So we headed out for Joseph Steward State Park near the town of Prospect.  On the way we saw a single snow capped mountain that sparked against the blue sky.  We are parked for tonight and tomorrow night at the state park – we plan to make a day trip into the National Park tomorrow.