We admit that we feel compelled to travel south down the Oregon coast in a bit of a hurry since we’re on our way to visit Karen’s parents in California, but that doesn’t mean we let much escape us. Here, a must-do list (from north to south) even if you’ve only got a few days to get from Astoria, Oregon to Eureka, California.

1.  Eat at Mo’s

It’s not even lunchtime yet, but we stop at Mo’s Seafood in Cannon Beach and get a cup of their “World Famous Clam Chowder” to share on the beach as we look out at Haystack Rock (which is a rock and is, pretty much, shaped like a haystack). It must be said, however, that we are skeptical (of the chowder, not the rock). How can a world-class chowder hail from anywhere but the east coast? Still, we figure if it’s good enough for Bobby Kennedy, who allegedly hauled gallons of the stuff onto his plane after a campaign stop here, it’s good enough for us. It’s also good enough for you. This chowder is awesome—not too thick (it’s made with milk, not cream), full of clams (not potato filler) and simply delicious. Cheap too at $4.95 for a very shareable bowl.

Haystack Rock.

2.  Sip a microbrew on the beach

We stop in Pacific City, Oregon anxious for a look at the famous fleet of Dory boats, a unique flat-bottomed contraption that’s brought ashore by launching it out of the water and landing high up onto the sand. Dramatic, to say the least. Sadly, there’s not a Dory boat to be seen when we arrive at the water’s edge. We do see a likely looking brewpub called the Pelican Pub & Brewery and drown our disappointment in a couple of very fine pints. As we sip, it occurs to us that this is the first brewpub we’ve ever been to (and there have been many, folks) that’s actually on a beach. It’s a nice combination that should happen more often.

Cape Blanco Lighthouse.

3.  Buy a lighthouse

Lighthouses can all start to blend together after a while: desolate wind-swept location, steep, narrow, windy stairs, white paint, big bright light. But the Cape Blanco Lighthouse north of Florence, Oregon stands out for a couple of reasons. First of all, it appears to be pretty much run by a bunch of passionate and knowledgeable volunteers who give a darn good tour. Second, most of the tour takes place right in the lens room about a foot away from the actual original Fresnel lens and it’s very cool to see a working lens so close. Then there’s the view which is jaw dropping, even among lighthouses which tend to have pretty spectacular views, that being a big part of their job. Anyway, we can only imagine how cool it must be in the lighthouse during the annual whale migration. While we’re wondering that, our tour guide explains that the Bureau of Land Management is planning to relinquish responsibility for running the lighthouses and Cape Blanco Lighthouse will soon be put up for sale for a song. Anyone can buy it, and turn it into a house or a B&B or a restaurant or whatever as long as you continue to maintain and operate the light since sailors of all sorts still rely on lighthouses, even in this age of the GPS. As our guide points out, technology needs to be recalibrated. Lighthouses don’t move.

The Fresnel lens at the Cape Blanco Lighthouse.

4.  KOA in the woods

As advertised, the Bandon/Port Orford KOA, a President’s Award winner in 2007, is incredibly wooded—so wooded, in fact, that it almost feels like pulling into a state or national park campground (okay, except for the laundry room and the hot tub…) We park our Airstream in cozy site D7 and even though there are other RVs on either side of us we’re insulated with a buffer of such thick trees that we never see or hear our neighbors.

5.  Help the California State Park System

We weren’t planning to spend much time in Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park since, by all accounts, the forest of old growth redwoods is too thick for many trails so there’s not much here but a campground and a drive through the trees which we figured we’d get enough of in Redwood National and State Parks further south. But we pull into the campground just to see what it’s like—and we never leave. The sites are literally in the middle of groves of coastal redwoods and the site we choose, site #3, provides a snug curved pull through with giants on both sides that seem to hug our Airstream. We simply can’t resist. Plus, it feels good to pump a bit of cash into the struggling California State Park System which has been the target of shut-down threats from Governor Schwarzenegger as he looks to close parks as a way to overcome a state budget shortfall. Our $20 camping fee covers entry into ANY state park in the region for 24 hours, so it’s a bargain to boot. But it’s the chance to literally camp beneath the redwoods that clinches the deal.

Our campsite among the Redwoods in Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park.

6. Gawk at The Redwoods

We know it’s not grammatically correct, but we feel compelled to call them The Redwoods as a kind of ode to the stature and impact of these most impressive trees. Anything that grows to be nearly 400 feet tall and more than 2,000 years old deserves a little nod, don’t you think? Before packing up our Airstream after a lovely night in site #3 in the Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park campground, we drive the Howland Hill Scenic Drive. We are disappointed that we have to leave the Airstream behind, but this five mile gravel road is too narrow and curvy for trailers of any kind and there truly are a couple of narrow S-bends that would have been an alarmingly tight squeeze with the Airstream in tow. It’s an awesome drive with The Redwoods so close you feel like you could roll down the window and reach out and touch them. However, unless you have an enormous sun roof, driving through The Redwoods always feels like half a perspective since you can really only appreciate the base and lower trunk. To get the full effect, we return to the campground and walk across a footbridge over the Smith River (the only major river in the state that hasn’t been dammed) and wander along the one mile long Stout Grove loop trail. Here we get the full effect of The Redwoods as we crane our necks and try to see the tippy top of the massive old growth giants all around us.

Barely enough room to drive the truck between The Redwoods.

In our pre-Airstream life (i.e., back when we had a permanent address before giving up our Manhattan apartment and putting everything in storage), we were Netflix addicts. We loved the movie selection, the cost-effectiveness and the convenience of home delivery in those signature red envelopes.

Once we got over our amazement at the fact that our Safari SE has a DVD player (??!?!?), we began looking for a viable replacement for Netflix that would work for us out on the road full time. We recently found the answer in another high-tech movie delivery system that uses a lot of red.

Redbox is a company that has installed bright red kiosks inside thousands of big chains (Albertson’s, McDonalds, Wal-Mart, etc). Find a Redbox, peruse their movie catalog, make a choice and the machine spits out your DVD—all for just one dollar per night. Key for us, shameless nomads that we are, is the fact that you can return your movie to any Redbox kiosk so you don’t have to stay in the same place to successfully return your movie. Even better? The company is constantly offering codes for free movie rentals. Okay, maybe that sounds a bit like an ad–but go to their site and sign up for these offers and soon you’ll be watching free movies like we are!

Okay. So Mount Rainier in Washington state isn’t actually called that because it’s “rainier” than most (English explorer George Vancouver named Mount Rainier after his friend, Rear Admiral Peter Rainier). But the Mount Rainier region does get an extraordinary amount of rain (about four feet a year). Then there are the years when things go just plain nuts.

Record rainfall in November of 2006 to the tune of 18 inches in 36 hours foiled our first attempt to visit Mount Rainier National Park since the catastrophic flooding closed roads, ruined trails, wiped out campgrounds and diverted entire rivers. The park is actually still repairing damage done by that monster storm, which becomes apparent when we head out of our prime site in the White River Campground (more on that later) and head out on the Glacier Basin Trail.

A flyer tacked up at the trail head warns that the first mile of the 3.5 mile (one way) route was washed away and dramatically re-diverted by flood waters caused by the November, 2006 storm. A new makeshift scramble through this devastated section has been identified by rangers and marked with yellow caution tape and walking through the area gives us a good look at the destructive power of so much water. The landscape only enforces our belief that water always wins.

Entering Mount Rainier National Park on a foggy evening.

Drizzle and cloud cover persist as we reach Glacier Basin itself. A five site primitive campground here is a favorite base camp for climbers summiting Mount Rainier, which remains hidden behind thick clouds the whole time we are up there—tantalizingly close, yet invisible.

We have no trouble at all seeing the most rambunctious marmot we’ve ever encountered. Unlike its usually-lazy brethren, this one is up and at ‘em, scurrying across the gorgeous meadow like a cat, nibbling grass and flowers from one end of the small lake to the other and scampering up the nearby hillside emitting its trademark squeak as it goes—like a noisy child’s toy that had been wound up too tight.

We descend in the same drizzle and begin to think we might have better luck getting a good look at the mountain if we stopped calling it Rainier and started calling it by its Indian name: Mount Tacoma. The rain has stopped by the time we return to our Safari happily at home in the best campsite in White River Campground and, perhaps, the whole park.

The best campsite in the park and maybe the best one in the entire park system.

Site D29 is a pull through literally right on the banks of the White River. That’s great enough. However, this site also offers an in-your-face view of Mount Rainier just upstream. If the clouds would just scram we can see it from the window in the bedroom of our Safari.

It’s so idyllic that we decide to stay for another night and the next morning we are rewarded with bright, clear and sunny skies and our first clear shot of the mountain. Airstream insulated coffee mugs in hand, we drive the 10 miles from the campground to Sunset Point for even better views (and shots) of Mount Rainier. By 7:30 am the clouds are already rolling back in, but after two attempts and two years of waiting, we finally get our hour with the mountain and we can now leave the park satisfied.

Worth the wait: on our second morning in the park Mount Rainier is finally crystal clear.

After a quick run up to Mt. Baker in the lovely Cascade Mountains of Northern Washington (made quicker by peak-obscuring clouds and a persistent drizzle), we steer toward North Cascades National Park, an amalgamation of four autonomously run areas with so many interesting trails we actually turn to a ranger for advice about the best all-around hike in the area.

His pick is the 7.5 mile Maple Pass Loop which is just outside park boundaries. Built by the Forest Service and originally intended as part of the Pacific Crest Trail, the loop begins in dense rain forest and heads up to the cut off to Lake Ann where we stick to the spur that continues steadily up the hillside, giving us an Osprey’s perspective on the fishermen dotting Lake Ann’s shores below us in stealthy pursuit of the steelhead trout she’s stocked. 

Karen heading down the Maple Pass Loop trail just outside North Cascades National Park.

As we switch-back our way up to Maple Pass—which is really more of a saddle than a pass— the terrain becomes steep, rocky and barren. We continue past Maple Pass along the ridge to an adjacent, much higher pass point and head back down the valley next to the one we just hiked up. This steep trail takes us above and then past jade-colored Rainy Lake and across hillsides dotted with huge patches of red, white, purple and yellow wild flowers which are still in high bloom since summer came so late this year. It’s a lot of color for nearly 7,000 feet.

Wildflowers on the Maple Pass Loop trail.

Once we finish the hike we begin to consider where we should spend the night and remember that other Airstreamers have consistently advised us to seek out President‘s Award winning KOAs whenever possible. Sure enough, the KOA in nearby Winthrop has snagged the award for many years running.

To get there, we leave the forest and head to lower ground. As much as we love mountains, emerging from the steep slopes and lofty peaks into a roomy valley always feels like that first, satisfying morning stretch and entering the Methow Valley is even more satisfying. If there were beauty contests for valleys, this one would be wearing a crown and a sash right now: wide, green, (benefitting, as it does, from rain generated by its mountain neighbors) and full of horses. It’s also got something we are not expecting: fantastic architecture.

The picture-perfect Methow Valley.

House after house impresses us with innovative design—half-submerged in the earth, angular roof tops, unexpected colors and materials. From small houses to obviously opulent vacation homes, each one shows signs of functional creativity. It’s hard to find just a simple box.

The valley delivers us into the small town of Winthrop which is an architectural marvel of a different kind. A strict architectural code was imposed years ago, dictating that all storefronts be designed in an Old West style so everything kind of looks like the set of “Gunsmoke.” Somehow, the town has managed to adhere to the rules without committing the cheese ball, theme-park crimes that other Wild West places like Deadwood, South Dakota are so guilty of (we’re pretty sure the unchecked proliferation of tacky casinos, crappy buffets and fake whorehouses has Deadhorse’s most famous residents, Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok and Wyatt Earp, spinning in their graves).

Downtown Winthrop, WA in all its Old West finery.

It’s fitting that the Winthrop/North Cascades National Park KOA is also a sight for sore eyes. Grass everywhere! Big trees! Roomy sites! Helpful staff! We’re sorry we can only stay one night.

Our Safari SE on its very first ferry ride.

The 30 minute ride goes smoothly, of course, and that’s a good thing since Toby’s Tavern in Coupeville, not far from the ferry terminal, has some Penn Cove mussels with our names on them. We were at Toby’s a couple of years ago in search of the area’s world-famous mussels, but the day we stopped by a strange marine bloom meant that fishermen had temporarily stopped going out for the delicious shellfish.

The whole point of today’s ferry ride is to try again. This time we call ahead to confirm that the mussels are available and when the steaming hot bowl arrives at our table it quickly becomes clear that they are worth the repeat visit. They are small, taut, sweet, creamy and not at all sandy. In other words, perfect.

Confession time: extremes are irresistible to us. Put “st” on the end of it—highest/deepest/longest/widest/oldest/whateverest—and we’re there. Needless to say, the chance to get to the westernmost point in the lower 48 is too much for us to resist, so we head out to Cape Alava.

The seven mile (round trip) trail is a lovely rolling meander through coastal rain forest, almost entirely on a cedar wood boardwalk, sections of which are warped and twisted by the perpetual damp into gorgeous wavy shapes that make it feel like walking on a mini-rollercoaster.

Karen on a stretch of boardwalk that takes us to the westernmost point in the lower 48.

When we reach the cape itself we’re whacked in the face by some of the most pungent-smelling seaweed we’ve ever encountered. It’s low tide and the beach is strewn with the stuff, more than a foot deep in places.

The Rocky Beach at Cape Alava, the westernmost point in the lower 48.

Just off the coast, very vocal sea lions are sunning themselves on massive boulders that ring an imposing rocky monolith that you used to be able to camp on. A juvenile bald eagle throws itself off a massive tree on the inland edge of the sand and circles above us before landing (clumsily) again. Then a man approaches and tells us that an even more impressive animal can be seen further down the neighboring beach—a dead grey whale (the largest mammal on earth!).

After slogging through stinky seaweed for more than a mile we still see no sign of a huge dead whale on (something that you’d think would be pretty obvious), but a ranger assures us that it’s still further along “but probably pretty rank by now since it’s been dead for three or four weeks.” We are undeterred and, sure enough, we stumble upon a nearly flesh-free vertebra the size of a spare tire. Then another vertebrae. Then a rib. Then the entire whale—or what’s left of it.

A whale vertabrae.

Beaten by the surf, ravaged by time and the elements and picked at by countless animals, the poor creature looks more like a truck-sized mound of pink lard than one of the noblest, most mysterious beasts on the planet. What it smells like defies description. As long as we stay upwind it’s bearable but the day has still been the stinkiest ever.

What’s left of a beached grey whale after four weeks on the sand.

No, not the recent Phelps-fest in China (go Michael!). We’re talking about the Olympic Peninsula and Olympic National Park in Washington where it’s (surprise! surprise!) raining—which at least makes sense in a rain forest.

Entering the temperate rain forests of Olympic National Park.

The hiking trails through the rain forest are all so tempting that we make like a local and just gear up and head out despite the rain. Part of the pull of the trails around Lake Quinault, where we’re based, is a series of much-hyped “Largest Trees in the World” that we are determined to check out.

Call us skeptics, but whenever we see the phrase “in the world” we smell hyperbole. So it is with one eyebrow raised that we head for the “Largest Sitka Spruce in the World.” She’s big—55’ 7” around and 191’ tall. Then it’s off to the “Largest Douglas Fir in the World,” which clocks in at 40’ around and 302’ tall according to the National Forestry Association which tracks such things.

This 191 foot giant dwarfs Karen, but is it really the Largest Sitka Spruce in the World? .

The Lake Quinault area boasts four other largest trees in the world (a yellow cedar, a Western hemlock and a red cedar), but we’ve had enough. The thing is, to get to these anointed ones you walk past dozens if not hundreds of other biggies and it feels so unfair to celebrate just a chosen few.

One evening the rain lets up so we drive the scenic loop road around Lake Quinault in search of a secluded and scenic spot for a picnic dinner. After pausing to let a herd of Roosevelt elk meander across the road and gawk at us curiously, we find a tree-ringed turnout on the edge of the water and settle in for a tailgate supper of hamburgers and grilled corn. It looks and feels so much like bear country that we half expect a dinner guest.

Speaking of food, the next morning we order sweet potato pancakes for breakfast at the Lake Quinault Lodge at the urging of our Lonely Planet Northwest Washington and Oregon guidebook which gushes that the restaurant at the lodge has the best food in the area—especially the pancakes. And it’s no lie. They are sweet, but not too sweet. Hearty, but not dense. And the hazelnut butter served with them makes syrup completely unnecessary. They’re so good, we order them again the next morning.

The view of Lake Quinault from the dining room of Lake Quinault Lodge.

As delicious as it is, it feels weird and shockingly expensive to eat breakfast in a restaurant. Since we got into the Airstream we’ve been on a pretty strict diet of home cooked meals which means we’re healthier (weirdly, there’s no hazelnut butter in our fridge). It also means we’re richer—we’ve saved a ton of money on food simply by ditching restaurants in favor of our totally useable kitchen (though the oven remains a virgin). Plus we can eat what we want when we want it.

All that cooking does mean a return to supermarkets (why isn’t there a Trader Joe’s in every town?) and we’ve got a regular schedule of dirty dishes to deal with, but wild salmon with lemon basmati rice and sautéed spinach at a fraction of what it would cost in a restaurant makes icky chain supermarkets and dishpan hands worth it.

One of the unique things about Olympic National Park is that it includes world class rain forest right beside world class beaches—though some of them have not such world class names. However, we are assured that the unimaginatively-named Beach 4 has fantastic tidal pools so we head there to check them out. Sadly, we arrive at high tide and all the pools are well under water. We do spot dolphins in the distance and wander the rugged tree strewn beach before moving on up the coast.

Karen scans the horizon for dolphins on Beach 4.

Well, we just did and it involves reverse, a large piece of metal and a window.

The details are too mundane to bore you with here. Suffice to say, a particularly tricky back-in site got us into a jack-knifed position and while we were studiously watching the bumper to make sure it didn’t smack into our Airstream (as we’d been told to do be ware of), the top corner of the cargo box installed in the bed of our truck hit one of the protective panels in front of our panorama windows. Crunch. Smash. Big hole. Luckily the window itself is unscathed, but the same cannot be said for our pride.

As we leave the Portland, Oregon area it starts to rain (the first precip we’ve seen in months), forcing us to change our plans on the fly (not the first time, and not the last) and re-route to the coast—where gray, drizzly weather can be called “moody”—instead of toward Mt. Rainier where the clouds and storms will just make things gloomy and totally obscure any views or shots of the mountains.

So it’s off to Bay Center just off the Washington coast. Just a couple of miles from our destination, we make another brief detour into the parking lot of a local seafood market in South Bend, WA right on Willapa Bay which is peppered with signs declaring the place “The Oyster Capitol of the World.”

Willapa Bay, Washington, Oyster Capital of the World???

The woman who serves us at the seafood market tells us that one in five oysters eaten around the world comes from Willapa Bay and assures us that the salty delicacies are currently very good, even though August is a month that does not end in “r.”

We walk out of the seafood market with two dozen oysters ($10.50) and the fervent hope that we can find the shucking knife we’ve got squirreled away “somewhere” in the truck or in the Airstream. The only bad thing about so much storage space in our Safari is that sometimes we forget where we put seldom used items, like an oyster shucking knife! Luckily, we find the necessary tool quickly and easily (it was in the Rubbermaid tub marked “pantry” in the bottom half of the lock box in the back of our truck, if you must know), and Eric gets down to the messy business of lunch on the picnic table by our site in the Bay Center KOA.

Schucking oysters while trying to keep all 10 fingers attached.

The shellfish (and the Airstream) attracts the folks in the site next to ours. They’re shellfish fans too and have been successfully digging for clams every evening on the beach down a short path through the rainforest from the campground. By the time we clean up the oyster mess the rain returns so we retreat into the Airstream.

It’s our first real storm in the Safari and, man, rain is loud on an Airstream roof—but so much less distressing than a night of leak maintenance in a tent!