Monday, August 9, 2010 - Travel Day to Stagecoach Horse Camp, Tillamook State Forest

Didn't get up too early, as the trip today is only about 2 ½ hours long, though we did need to stop and shop for groceries and to buy some green coffee beans (Hubby roasts his own) in Portland. Found a Safeway store before we got on the highway with relatively inexpensive gas, did our food shopping and jumped onto I-5. Stopped at the rest area to dump, then went into downtown Portland to get out beans a the Portland Roasting Company. They didn't ordinarily sell green beans, but did make the occasional exception for folks like us who roast there own. It turned out to be a rather circuitous route, but we did get a good look at Portland, trolley cars, storefronts and derelicts and all. Finally got back on the highway, and after a bit of climbing (we're only at about 2000 feet, so it's not at all like really climbing), we turned onto the gravel road that would lead us to the Horse Camp in about 5 miles. We arrived to a narrow camp road, with only 11 sites, most of which were only suited for small rigs. There were a couple of larger sites, but they were a long way from the water source, which is a makeshift trough with a hose that gravity feeds off a small creek. I had forgotten about filling up our RV tanks until we were halfway up the gravel road, so we figured we would have to conserve, and maybe use the stock water for washing dishes, and skip our bi-weekly shower until we got to our next location, thinking at the time the stock water would be from a spigot like the last camp. No such luck. The best site for us would have been perfect, right next to the creek, except it had a huge set-in fire grate right in the middle of the area we would like to park. Not to be deterred, we backed in over the top of it as far as we could, and just managed to barely be back far enough to be off the road. Had the silly fire grate not been there, we could have gotten another 6-8 feet back, not blocked the corrals at all, and had plenty of room for the pickup as well. I really wish the Forest Service would have an expert come in and look at their campsites, it would be so easy to improve them in a way that would make them much more attractive, and bring in more user fees. Of course, I should mention this is a state forest, but nevertheless, why build a horse camp without understanding what horse campers need? I will give them credit, though, about one innovation we hadn't seen before. The corrals had high crossbars on them, and at first I couldn't understand why, but then I realized that the middle one was higher, and that if you put a tarp across it, you would create a temporary roof for when it rains. A good idea for an area like this, where it apparently rains a lot. Anyway, we had to spend another hour rigging up the generator, the drill pump and a hose system so that we could pump water from the creek to the horses. It was too steep to carry up tubs, so in the end, we felt this was the best solution. The only other one would be to walk the horses to the trough, which isn't far, but we like it better when the horses can drink for themselves. We weren't sure our little drill pump would have the power to push water that far and at that much of an incline, but it managed quite well. As it was getting late, we only filled the tubs about half full, with plans to finish it off tomorrow. Had a bite of dinner, watched a movie, off to bed, still tired from our two long rides over the weekend.