Yet another impromptu camping outing - this time at Viento state park. About 1.5 hours East of Portland so we were able to arrive before 8pm and cook our dinner. We had two concerns being the cold temperature and the rain. We had been extremely lucky this past summer with the lack of rain but our luck ended for this trip. Here she is getting some last minute groceries before our trip

After looking into different heating options between propane or electric, I decided to purchase a small ceramic heater from HomeDepot for only $23

Although this limits us to visiting sites with electric hook-up this winter, it kept us very warm and we can use it in the apt as well. I might go the propane route next year depending on how much we like cooler (winter) camping. Viento was a nice campsite with clean(ish) bathrooms and warm showers, $16 per night was the discounted discovery season rate. After a night of heavy rain with the pop-top down, we were eventually treated to some sunshine.

Of course the rain did come again and because it is still the original canvas top, we spent most of the weekend with the top down to avoid it getting wet. Below is the day's entertainment, I don't encourage anyone to get this beer tho - it was crazy strong

Viento park is right by the gorge with close river access which was great but the bad side of that being the proximity to the noisy train tracks. Excellent short hikes netted us a great view as well as some fancy new coins courtesy of the passing trains.

Our next camping installment (and maybe our last for the season) was at Cape Lookout State park. October is considered "Discovery Season" with the Oregon State parks which means the camping rates are discounted. We decided to really test out our new house battery set-up this time and utilize the tents sites offered at this park. We arrived after dark so took the first site available. Here is a shot in the morning of our initial set-up

We chose this park due to it's proximity to the ocean as well as the sunny forecast for the next 2 days. You might notice the steam on the windshield due to the outside temperature dropping to the 40's overnight. After biking around the park we discovered a perfect site that was literally 20ft from the ocean so we moved off to our second camping day.

Our site was on a corner and only $13 with the beach right on the other side of the bluff!

There were a few hiking trails to the end of the cape and although we originally thought we could bring our mountain bikes we soon found out that they weren't allowed (not to mention impossible to navigate). Here are some shots we took along the way

10 miles round trip and 5 hours later it was time for some frisbee and a beautiful sunset to end another awesome camping experience

After 2 days, I did find that the house battery did not have enough power to charge my laptop for the second full movie and had to start the camper for a while for it to re-charge. I might look into adding a second or larger battery in the future. Interior mods for this month are the new front door speakers and a new Shur-flo water faucet which worked great!