Fort Stevens State Park

I had this idea in my head that I needed to get one more camping trip in before ski season this year.  About a month ago we set that weekend as October 24-26, and the Park was Fort Stevens State Park near Astoria, Oregon.  Going into it we knew it would probably rain.  We got lucky and it was dry when we arrived and it stayed clear while we set up.  But, it rained all night and this is what our camp looked like when we woke up.

 

And this is what Josh thought of it:

I was beyond impressed when he had been out of his sleeping bag all of five minutes and he started building this:

I was genuinely surprised at how well the trench worked.  It drained our picnic table area and kept the tent dry.  It rained pretty hard while we were there so we had to reinforce it a couple times, but the trench drain was a brilliant fix.

 We got the camp site setup pretty well, we had enough cover to keep dry and the place was gorgeous.

Here is me maintaining a relentlessly positive attitude while cowering under the tarp with a cup of coffee.

We took a walk down to the beach on Saturday.  All night we could hear the ocean, so we thought for sure that it was right over the hill.  The walk to the beach was at least a solid mile, but we made it!

There is so much to explore at  Fort Stevens and we didn't even scratch the surface of what we wanted to see; the weather kept us to a fairly hermit-like existence.  But, we did get to see the Peter Iredale shipwreck.  It was the biggest reason I chose this park, and it is beyond cool.  It was really windy at the beach; Josh said it was the strongest wind he had ever been in.  We could only handle staying on the beach for about 10 minutes, and this pic of Leonard is the only one we took.  Josh had to act as a wind/rain break for me to take it.

 We got back to the campsite and started a much needed fire to warm up and dry out.

We ended up making friends with the people in the background.  They were crabbing and had caught 400 over the last several days.  They gave us 4 whole crab, they brought us over and shared crab cakes and moonshine.  It is always amazing who you meet!

Leonard decided that there wasn't anywhere worth laying down except the car.  We shut off the lights and let him sleep the afternoon away.

Go Cougs! We have to represent wherever we go :)

It was a great trip.  We definitely want to go back when the weather is a little better so we can check out the rest of the park.  My first camping in the rain experience was totally worth it, now I know what its like.  And I learned a little bit about my husband and how resourceful he can be.