Fort Stevens State Park in Oregon

Situated on the northern tip of the Oregon Coast lies Fort Stevens State Park. Once the site of a military installation used to guard the mouth of the Columbia River, it is now one of the coolest parks in the Oregon State Park system. It has a large, year-round campground consisting of 12 campground loops with 174 full hookups and 302 partial hookups. Not too shabby. And because of it’s proximity to the beach and neighboring towns of Warrenton and Astoria, this campground is in an idea location. Whether exploring the park on a hiking or biking trail, taking scenic photos of the wreck of the Peter Iredale…



Identifying the flora and fauna, or visiting the historic military site…



There’s plenty of activity to keep visitors busy.

Fort Stevens was chosen as our first October getaway for the above reasons and then some. Our first choice, Silver Falls State Park, was booked for the weekend. Also, we knew our cell phone and Aircard should work at this campground. For more information visit Oregon State Parks.

We left Portland on an overcast afternoon and headed to the coast, only encountering a few light showers along the way. We were early checking in, but that wasn’t an issue since the campground was almost deserted. In fact, we were the only campers in Loop E.



After setting up camp, we explored the surrounding area. We checked out the nearest comfort station…



Discovered some wild mushrooms…



And walked to the trash bins near the front entrance. We figured we ought to be outside as much as we could before the rain came. And it did arrive.

On day two, it began pouring. And pouring. It’s day three now, and it’s still raining.

Our site is underneath a beautiful Sitka Spruce tree which has been dumping extra rain on us ever since the rain started. All day and night long, we hear the pitter patter of heavy raindrops beating in a random symphony on the roof. Amazingly, it is easy to sleep through the sound. However, the rain has gotten in the way of a few things. Like going outside. Also, we can barely hear the DVDs we have been watching on one of the laptops. And our cell phones aren’t keeping their connections.

Another issue we discovered yesterday was that our house battery isn’t getting charged when we are connected to shore power. And since there is no sun, the solar panels on our roof aren’t recharging it either. All of our houselights are dim and the battery is almost drained. We can plug things into our electric outlets though, and everything runs. We have a floodlight that I brought “just in case” that is now our main light source. And we brought a space heater, which is great because our furnace runs on propane and is powered by the house battery. We already tried unsuccessfully to warm up the rig this morning that way.

The weather forecast calls for rain and wind today, high of 59. Looks like another day spent indoors. We’re expecting our friends to arrive in about two hours though, so we’ll all find ways to entertain each other.

**note- any photos depicting sun in them were taken on our last trip here. :)