RV ALASKA - North to Alaska - Finally!

Five years ago, in celebration of our 40^th wedding anniversary, Alan and I planned a trip to Alaska, just the two of us.  Our airline, car rental and hotel reservations for a week were in place, plus we had booked a sweet little balcony cabin on a cruise ship for a one-week trip down the Inside Passage.  Then, we had to cancel for business-related reasons.  SO disappointing!  COVID followed, and we ended up canceling an extended trip to the Oregon coast, too, leaving our travel calendar in even worse shape.  Here we are, five years later, with the 49th state back on the schedule and our 45th anniversary just ahead.

Back to the Coast after a Disappointing Visit to Crater Lake National Park (National Parks Trip #3)

This post represents another installment in the series documenting our West Coast National Parks trip in the summer of 2017.  Alan and I, along with our 18 year old daughter, Kyra, logged a total of 8,513 memorable miles of adventure over the course of five and a half weeks during the months of July and August.

Whenever we visit a National Park, our preference is to camp within the park itself – assuming there’s a campground that will accommodate our 32’ travel trailer.  On this trip, though, we had planned a one day visit to Crater Lake, and it seemed like it was more trouble than it was worth to haul the trailer all the way east to the National Park for just two nights.  So, I decided to look for a campground west of Crater Lake, trading a longer drive on the actual day of our visit for a shorter one during which we’d be towing the trailer.  It wasn’t ideal but, as with any trip of this magnitude, concessions were inevitable.  As it turned out, this particular concession proved to be beneficial.

A Day Full of Alliteration - Bandon, Bakery & Bullards Beach! (National Parks Trip #3)

This post represents another installment in the series documenting our West Coast National Parks trip in the summer of 2017.  Alan and I, along with our 18 year old daughter, Kyra, logged a total of 8,513 memorable miles of adventure over the course of five and a half weeks during the months of July and August.

The next stop on our West Coast National Parks trip was Crater Lake National Park.  Our destination on this Day #22 was Griffin Park, a county park about 14 miles west of Grants Pass, Oregon, that would be our base camp for a visit to Crater Lake.  Trip planning for this expedition was like working a jigsaw puzzle.  There were quite a few irregularly shaped pieces that needed to be fit together to successfully complete the picture.  From Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park campground, it was a straight shot to Grants Pass which was about an hour and a half to the northeast.  But we had no intention of missing anything along the Oregon coast that had made the trip’s bucket list.  So, back to Highway 101 it was for another jaunt up the coast on a circuitous route that would, eventually, deposit us at the campground in Griffin Park.