Cape Lookout State Park - Day 1

Date: Sunday, 1st Jul 2012
Low Tide: 5:23am, -1.2


[Work in Progress - feedback are always welcome]

Background

Cape Lookout is 12 miles southwest of Tillamook, and serves 132,000 day visitors and 108,000 campers a year with world-famous trails, camping, beach play and picnicking.

Cape Lookout State Park Plan

Getting There

After more than 9 months of waiting, we are ready for the 6 days camping trip at Cape Lookout State Park on the beautiful Oregon coast.  We will be joining our family friends there.

Cape Lookout is 12 miles southwest of Tillamook, and serves 132,000 day visitors and 108,000 campers a year with world-famous trails, camping, beach play and picnicking.

Tip: To get this yurt that we are going to, we had to book 9 months in advance.  I was told that you may be able to get a yurt on weekdays much closer to the travel date.  When we were there, all 9 yurts were always occupied.

Technically, I don't consider this a camping trip since we will be staying in a yurt and not in a tent. Given that this is the first time we booked a yurt, we are not sure what to bring.  In the end, we bought along all our tent-camping gears - tent, sleeping bag and etc. 

For this trip, we are planning to take it easy with no activities planned.  We packed a number of board games (Risk, Monopoly, Chess and Othello) and some beach kits.   

We left around 2pm and was expecting to be at Cape Lookout State Park around 8pm.  As usual, we used the build-in Maps app in our Windows Phone as a GPS.  There are several advantages of a phone's GPS over a real GPS:

1. The map is never outdated.
2. It loads much faster.
3. No extra hardware needed.

Our route to Cape Lookout State Park

Crossing Into Oregon

We crossed over to Oregon state via Lewis and Clark Bridge at 4pm.  We had to pause a few minutes to enjoy the gorgeous Columbia River and Washington state right after crossing. 

Arriving at Cape Lookout State Park

After more than 5 hrs, we finally arrived at the park.  The check in process is similar to that of a hotel - give your name and you get the keys.  The park ranger also provided me with a map on what to do around the area.

Looking back, we love the yurt for 3 reasons:

1. We can charge our electonics gadgets: cameras, phones, camcorders and laptops.
2. We are shielded from the nature elements.
1. Temperature: The place is heated.  This is great because it was pretty chilly at night along the coast.
2. Rain: It rained one night and we were so glad we were in a yurt.
3. There is so much storage place!

It took us about an hour to unload, had a warm shower and all settled down for the night. By 10pm, we were all in bed.

The Shower Room

The toilet and shower room are very close to our yurt.  They are also very clean.  I love the shower because the water is very warm.  Since there are only 6 shower rooms, there may be a queue during the evening peak hour. 

The Cape Lookout State Park Series

1. Cape Lookout State Park - Day 1 - Arriving
2. Cape Lookout State Park - Day 2 - Munson Creek State Natural Site
3. Cape Lookout State Park - Day 3 - Tillamook Factory, Lighthouse, Paragliding
4. Cape Lookout State Park - Day 4 - 4th Jul Celebration
5. Cape Lookout State Park - Day 5 - Cape Trail
6. Cape Lookout State Park - Day 6 - Oceanside beach
7. Cape Lookout State Park - Day 7 - Depature