There's a shipwreck on the beach

Fort Stevens, Oregon, the best state park we've seen!

Mike and I with his e bike in front of the shipwreck at Fort Stevens State Park beach!

There’s a shipwreck on the beach at Fort Stevens State Park in Oregon.

Yep, you read that right! As we hit the Oregon coast on the return of our trip, we found the best park yet for biking, hiking, fishing, forest and beach walks.

After our trip to Portland and the “big city” experience I had with almost getting kidnapped in a rideshare, we were ready to be back in our trailer exploring nature, and Fort Stevens rocked it, especially for biking.

According to the website, Fort Stevens is: “One of the nation’s largest public campgrounds, Fort Stevens marks the site of a military installation once used to guard the mouth of the Columbia River. The fort saw service for 84 years, from the Civil War to World War II. Today, Fort Stevens is a 4,300-acre park offering a variety of recreation adventures, including camping, beach-combing, a freshwater lake, trails, wildlife viewing, and an historic shipwreck.”

Mike and I charged up our e-bikes and enjoyed absolutely MILES of riding through richly forested and coastal dune wilderness. There’s nothing quite like gliding up and down paved roads through forests of flowers and ferns, as well as along the miles of beach past the shipwreck and more.

The old bunkers and buildings from the Fort were in good shape for exploring and gave a historical window into a time when the military vigilantly guarded the mouth of the Columbia River, an important conduit inland to major cities in the USA. Walking through the buildings of the old fort, most of them sunk into the dunes and disguised with grass growing on their roofs, I was impressed again by the ingenuity and industriousness of our nation; but I’m so glad we currently live in a time of (mostly) peace.

Also, people were smaller back then, no question about it. 😁

I never get tired of e biking these gorgeous beaches and forests in Oregon...

If you go camping on the Oregon coast, don’t miss stopping at Fort Stevens for a couple of days—you’ll need at least that long to explore it all. This state park will always be a favorite of ours.

As we watched the sun go down over our beloved Pacific Ocean from the shipwreck on the beach, we knew Oregon was the next place where we wanted to live.

When we set off on our trek in a trailer across the USA, we hadn’t just been looking for adventure—we’d been looking for somewhere in which to spend the next chapter of our lives; we’d been seeking to answer the question of whether we were long-termers, permanent trailer vagabonds.

We found the answers we sought.

1)    We’re not long-termers. I like gardening and Mike likes woodwork projects too much to live in a trailer indefinitely.

2)    We love Oregon and hits our entire list of requirements and wishes. (Well, not eastern Oregon, but the coast.) I mean, WE LOVE IT. Enough to live there for our “golden years.” 😎

Time for realtalk: Mike is retiring, and we are planning for living on a fixed income. We want to lower our overhead and be somewhere with lots of nature and good fishing, that we can afford. Though several states were in the running as we traveled, Oregon was the one that really captured our hearts. ❤️

So, after our adventure at Fort Stevens, we began house hunting—and that’s a story for another day. Stay tuned! 😬