This is a small town on the Oregon coast where the Rouge River empties into the Pacific Ocean. We had quite the journey down from Grants Pass as we were told the RV was too big to travel the road south. We spoke with some people who stated they had just driven the road and saw semi-trucks on the road, good enough for me so we decided to do it. It was quite the ride with Lori on edge several times. The road was not that bad and just required us to slow down and pull over now and then to let others pass. We made it to Grants Pass and pulled into “Rouge River Landing Resort” (https://www.rogueriverlanding.com).
We were lucky to get a spot Riverfront for the entire duration of our stay and decided to pull the RV head in first so we would have a beautiful view out the front window the whole time we were there. This is a great place with RV spots, cabins, and their own restaurant. They have their own dock for people to keep their boats and we quickly found out that this is a fishing town. Lots of people on the river fishing and trolling for salmon. We were told that due to the cold winter, the water was still too cold for the Salmon but they were catching some.
Lori and I decided to head back south to Brookings as we saw a golf course we wanted to play. Along the way we stopped at Cape Sebastian State Park and took in a spectacular view. They have trail there, but we did not have time to hike it and vowed to come back. We arrived at “Salmon Run Golf Course” (https://www.salmonrungolf.com) and found it to be a very laid-back course. We learned that it is a very tight course and that we may lose some balls because it is unforgiving. They were not joking. It is a beautiful course that makes you feel like you are in another world. We ended up losing over a dozen balls because if you were off your shot by a few feet, it was gone. Tough but fun.
Keegan came down and joined us for the 4th of July weekend and we went back down to Cape Sebastian and some other beaches. We did part of the Cape Sebastian trail, but it started to go down the hill towards the beach and we did not want to go that far. Keegan said he was going to come back and run the entire trial (3.2 miles) from the beach to the top and back down.
The next day Keegan took off to go do his run, Lori and I went down to the beach shortly after to walk the beach and to meet up with him. The beaches along the Organ coast are quite spectacular to see and are much different than what Lori and I grew up with in So. Cal. There is huge rock out cropping’s that line the beach along with tons of driftwood, and I don’t mean small bits of driftwood but full size trees. Some of these tree stumps are as big as 8ft across! The wind was strong on this day and the sea was what I would call “angry”. The water up here is quite cold, so you do not see many people playing in the ocean.
After a while we saw Keegan come out from the wood trail and onto the beach. He ran about a mile on the beach and met up with us. He did the whole run and was quite winded. He said a number of people he passed on the trail told him he was nuts but that’s his thing, like Forest Gump said: “I just like to run”!
We went into Brookings and had lunch at a local restaurant and noticed they were having a 4th of July pier festival with a bunch of booths. We walked the booths and did the whole tourist thing. 4th of July in small town America is much different than what we are used to. The American pride in these small towns is sure different than what you see and hear from the media. We really enjoyed the vibe.
On the way back to Gold Beach we stopped at a few beaches and checked them out. One that Lori had found was called “Secret Beach” so we headed to the trailhead and then hiked from the road down to the beach. This was probably the most scenic beach I have ever seen in my life. It was something out of a movie with waterfalls, sandy beaches, wildlife, birds, and atolls. The bad thing about Secret beach is that it is not so secret. There were lots of people there enjoying the day but still it was worth the hike. A note of caution though, the trail is steep and when you get to the bottom of the trail, you hike down some rocks for about 40 feet and it is steep. You also come back the same way so be prepared.
The next day the weather was not so good, so we just did a drive upriver and through the canyons. We found a bunch of places on the river to check out and saw some small towns along the way.
The following day (4rth of July) we decided to drive up to “Cape Blanco Lighthouse”, which is north of Gold Beach. It was a great drive and when we got there, we found the weather had rolled in and you could not see anything. It was foggy and windy as hell, and you could not see 50ft. We also found out it was closed to visitors on this day. We passed the keepers farmhouse on the way up and stopped in there on the way back. The volunteers there gave us a tour of the farmhouse and the history of the family who lived there. Quite the story and quite the house. Amazing to see the craftsmanship that went into homes in the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s.
Back at the RV we had a BBQ for the 4th and we were going to go see the local fireworks display down at the town center. It was cold and windy and as the evening went on the fog started to come in. Now way up north here, it does not get dark until well after 9:00PM so they planned on shooting fireworks off at 10:00PM, but the fog had rolled in thick as soup and you could not see anything. We stayed at the RV figuring they would cancel the show because you could not see anything but nope, they shot them off anyway. You could not see any of the fireworks, but you could surely here them in the valley. This was entirely a different 4th of July experience than we are used to.
On the 5th (my birthday) Keegan left early for his 6hr trip to Bend and we headed North to Coos Bay for our next stop.
