Sunset Bay
Sunset Bay seemed like the typical Oregon State Park campground I hads passed on staying in the past few days. The sites were too close and the whole are just seemed crowded. All was calm and peacefule when I arrived around 1:30pm. I chose a site in the Yurt camping area. It looked like kind of an afterthought just placed there because there was not enough room for a Yurt. It was situated right along anotyher babbling brook and had decent barriers. I registered for one night and would allow fate determine whether a second was warranted. My biggest concern was whether Yurt campers were bigger partiers than tent campers and whether they would be keeping me up all night.
After setting up the tent I decided to stretch my legs with a bike ride. As has been the case everywhere I have camped so far, bikes are not allowed on the trails. I headed out on the road and found the campgrounds namesake to be a small dirty inlet with low quality water and sand. I proceeded up the road to find a county park with similar facilities as the state park for $1 less per night. There was no beach access. Further up the road I found an abandoned Air National Guard post on a small side street, but still no beach access. I made my way into Charleston 2.5 miles from camp. It is a quaint little place with multiple mini-markets all proudly serving Espresso. Didn't that fad go out in the 1990s?
I made my way down to the marina. the Coast Gurad Barracks station had a limited access beach. A few kids were enjoying the murky waves. I drove around the docks near the fish packing plant and wondered if I would eat canned fish again. No restaraunts to speak of, I headed back to camp.
Halfway back to camp I experienced a loud scream in my ear from a passing motorist. This is the second time this has happened to me this trip, although it used to occur quite regularly when I rode in Klamath Falls. Can we teach our kids some manners please? I later found the van of the culprit in 3 campsites away from mine and was tempted to ask the occupants if they thought it was funny to try to cause a bicyclists to lose control of his bike at 20 mph or if they would think it was funny if I stuck my head in their tent and screamed in the middle of the night while they were sleeping.
Back at camp by 2:30pm the yurt occupants across the way had arrived with their monster truck. As I pulled into my site the elderly and quiet Yurt hostess arrived to check on the new occupants. Dennis Hopper in his full Easy Rider outfit complete with leather jacket with leather fringe strips along the back and arms had arrived. He wanted to know where the water was. When the hostess pointed to a spicket he said, "No the Ocean, man. I never even heard of a Yurt, man. How do you use these things, man? Can you imagine putting sheet metal around one of these things and pulling it down the highway, man?" All in a voice that carried cleared to the ocean and sounded like he was getting the munchies. I knew I was in for a long night.
I made the best of it. Thank goodnes I got my headphones back from M while I was in Cottage Grove and bought a CD player and brought all my CDs at the last minute. I coolly relaxed to the gentle sounds of Sting while working on my web page. There was a lull for a few hours as "Loudmouth" (as I refer to him in my journal) was part of a larger group and spent some time with hiswife and child in cousing Jed's site down the road. Cousing Jed thought that about 6:30 pm in Sunset Bay State park would be a good time to do a complete tune up on his 1985 Ford F250. I sure hope he got the timing right as many times as he had to rev up the engine over the next hour.
I bought some Firewood for the night and settled down to reading Dick by the fire. It was calm and peaceful. I was able to block out noise of children fighting and crying or husbands and wives fighting and listen to the sound of the fire and brook. Around 10pm as I was getting ready to turn in, Loudmouth returned. I'm not sure if he just liked to hear himself talk or what, but their was a constant stream of nonsense invading my tent all night. In defense of yurt campers the other three Yurts around me were occupied by a nice couple and there two children and their families with hardly a peep out of them except for the occasional chuckle over the dinner table.
The next morning I was on my way by 6:30 am looking for a place to eat breakfast which I did not find until Port Orford. As a side note there was a sign posted on the bulletin board that Yurt hosts were needed. I believe you get a free full-hookup site for cleaning out the Yurts and greeting guests. I was tempted to inquire about it but, to quote my favorite bible passage, "Don 't you know my time has not yet come?"