Pacific City - Oregon Coast for the Eclipse

I am falling behind on logging our travels. It is hard to keep up with no internet or cell service at our site. We are now back to going to the library or the lodge (very slow WiFi) every day.  It is almost like fasting from technology when we camp in a location with neither cell or wifi. I imagine it is good for us. The daily routine is totally different without those two amenities. 

We stayed a few nights at South Jetty in Florence and then drove the two and a half hours up to our home for the Eclipse. We called weeks in advance to make reservations at Whaler's Rest, but it was mostly booked already. South Jetty was way too far south for the Eclipse so I asked for availability at Pacific City which has very few sewer sites and no cell towers in range. It was available for all but two nights, the fifth and the eleventh so I booked it.

When we arrived the park felt very cramped, it is a huge park but with lots of hills and tight turns. The foliage here is so thick it is a wall surrounding each site. That makes for great privacy. There is even one site for horse camping with two metal outdoor pens the size of a stall (12' x 12'). It doesn't look like it has been used in years. Only one loop has sewer and it was full the day we arrived. Cell coverage is spotty and 3g at best. 

We found a nice private site on a side loop about half way in. There is a trail to the ocean. It is a downhill walk there and all uphill on the return trip. The strange thing about the climate here is there is very little wind. It is around 60 degrees every day with no wind so it is uncharacteristically pleasant for an ocean location.

My strategy to get a reservation for the fifth and eleventh was to call as well as try reserving online a couple of times every day. I managed to take one opening for the fifth on the third which was cutting it close. Then while at the library on the sixth I was online and it let me pick an RV site, but then errored out because I already have multiple reservations and it says (in error) that I am violating the seven days out of the park rule. It wasn't smart enough to link all of the reservations together to calculate my total nights in that park. So I told DH that we needed to drive to the lodge at 5am to try to snag that one opening. He was game (he has nothing else to do right?) and I got that one opening which means we are not going to be homeless for this three week stretch.

Wildlife here is totally different than at San Benito. Bunnies...lots and lots of bunnies! In the small town deer graze in peoples yards. The foliage is so thick at the campground we've not seen any deer. 

It is overcast every morning so we figure we will need to drive inland in the middle of the night to actually get to see the Eclipse. We bought our Eclipse glasses at the grocery store so we are good to go!

It was not fun having to call every single day so I have made reservations at a variety of Thousand Trails parks through September 30th. I would rather cancel them later if we change our plans. After September, we will be traveling through states with no Thousand Trails as we head south to Arizona for the Winter.