Our First Week

Our first week of full-timing has come and gone and despite a few hiccups we are excited with all the prospects ahead of us. We headed out of Brookings on Saturday 8/13 and decided to head up the Oregon coast. Our first night was a quick stay at Darlings Marina & RV Resort outside of Florence, OR. The park sits on Siltcoos Lake. They have some spots right on the lake but we ended up in one of their spaces up the hill from the lake. The area is tight and we had to carefully maneuver the motorhome into the space. It was a nice overnight stop over for our trip but not someplace we'd want to spend much time at due to the tight quarters. The staff was friendly and helpful and they are very dog friendly and our furry- kids were good with staying here. There are many lakes in the area, besides a short drive to the ocean, to take the kids and let them play. We were able to wear them out after getting settled in. The park also has it's own pub and deli with a small but nice selection of beer and cider and exceptional fresh-made pizza.

We left Florence on Sunday morning and headed to Newport, OR for a stay at Beverly Beach State Park. We've been here before and it is a nice place with beach access as part of the park. Spaces are nice with plenty of room. We did find that we had limited cellular service on Verizon so doing any work online was not possible, luckily the Starbucks in Newport had good wifi so I was able to get my work done there. Also the spaces are in the trees and well shaded which is nice but does prevent using satellite TV.

Newport and the surrounding area is a great place to spend time with lots to do, both outside activities (hiking and other activities) and sights to see. We also found a couple fun breweries in the area with Newport being the home to Rogue Ales.

After a few days at Newport we headed towards Medford, OR with a quick stop in Junction City, OR to have some items fixed in the motorhome that were missed when we had a bunch of items upgraded before heading out full-time. This was a pain but having our couch not secured to the floor properly wasn't a good idea 😀.

We then headed to Valley of the Rogue State Park which sits on the Rogue river between Grants Pass and Medford. We needed to be in Medford for a couple of days for some medical appointments so decided try this park. The weather was hot while we were here for two nights (highs in the high 90s) so it was nice that we had a 50amp site and could cool off the motorhome. The babies like their comforts of course! The site was nice and wide and the one we picked backed up to the Rogue river. Unfortunately the access to the river was minimal so Vinnie wasn't able to swim since he'd probably get swept away and Alan didn't really want to go swimming  to recover him. The site offered enough sky view that getting satellite TV was possible and the Verizon service was adequate to get online.

Besides taking care of appointments, we visited Jackson and Ashland while there. Jackson is a cute little town with many little shops and cafes to explore. The babies enjoyed taking a break at one of the coffee shops!

Ashland is the home to the Oregon Shakespeare festival and lots of shops, restaurants and other things to see. We didn't get much time to see Ashland but we have been there before and enjoy the town.

We enjoyed both state parks and like that all Oregon state park campgrounds are dog friendly and don't have an issue with the number of babies as long as they are well mannered and cared for. We also have never had an issue with setting up our fencing to sit out with the babies at any of the state parks. After two nights, we decided to head back to the coast since the temperatures were predicted to be even hotter over the weekend (100-105!) and not what any other us were ready for yet.