As I mentioned in my last post, we had to leave Nehalem Bay State Park on Tuesday because they were completely booked. During our stay there we had explored many of the surrounding cities, and we spotted a marina that have RVs parked right on the bay. We called and made a reservation, and had our shortest RV driving day ever – a whopping 10 miles down the road. Kelly’s Marina is no-frills, for sure, but it does provide water and electrical hook-ups, and this is right outside your window:
The park lets you pull your RV straight in, so this was the view from inside the RV:
Not bad for $30 a night. There was definitely a little room for improvement – for example, our fire pit was filled with cigarette butts and there was dried dog poop near our picnic table. We talked to the owner and he admitted he didn’t know much about RVs – the sites were there when he bought the marina a few years ago. Your RV neighbors are pretty close, and unfortunately for us the family next to us were smokers, and fired up bright and early each day. It was pretty chilly in the evenings, so we ended up just sitting inside to avoid the cold and cigarette smoke.
If you’re into crabbing, the marina will set you up with everything you need to crab right off their dock. We were planning to do some crabbing, but we watched others doing the same and no one seemed to be catching too much, so we decided to just hang out and enjoy the view instead.
Wednesday afternoon we stumbled upon a great walking trail, and took the dogs out there for a long walk. It’s basically a long grass path that runs along the Nehalem River.
There were wild blackberry vines everywhere – Deas kept picking them and eating them. I wish we had brought something with us to collect a bunch of them!
Even though it’s a been a little chilly at night, the weather during the day has been spectacular – blue skies, sunshine, and cool breezes. Just about perfect. After our walk on the trail we went into the nearby town of Wheeler for lunch, and had pizza sitting on a deck over looking the river.
Deas and I are not good pizza partners. I like all the veggies, and he wants meat. Luckily most places will split the pizza half-and-half for us!
When we were walking the dogs, they all, ahem, used the facilities. Being the good dog owners we are, we scooped it all up, but when we got back to the car there were no trash cans except for at the marina across the street. We’ve been in this situation before, and Deas absolutely refuses to put poop bags in the car with us. So this is his solution: he rolls down the window, puts the dog bags on the outside, and the rolls up the window catching the dog bags at the top. This is not the first time he’s done this. Then we have drive to the trash can, waving a few bags of poop in the wind. This is sooo embarrassing to me!
I’m just waiting for the day when one of the bags breaks open in the wind or comes loose.
Nealys on Wheels 
So funny! I’ve done the same with “poop bags”! Only I have generally put them on the hood or on the bed cover of the truck and I drove very, very slowly. LOL Now they make dark blue ones with the ties, at the time the were BRIGHT pink!
I’m making note of this campground. Sounds right up my alley–thank you. Did you have to make reservations? I love being around the water. I bundle up when it’s cold and enjoy myself much more than in the heat-sherpa hats are great. My chair would have been plunked down right near that water or on the dock, if allowed. That would have gotten you out of the smoke.
Thanks for sharing this beautiful place. I love crabbing–were they catching any? I can’t wait to see where you are next, and would love to see more pictures.
We did not make reservations until an hour before we arrived! But it was one of only a couple spots left, and they said that they were fully booked for the weekend. So I would recommend making a reservation just to be safe – there are only 17 RV spots, all facing the water. It didn’t look like the people on the dock were catching much. But the people next to us crabbed from their boat and they caught a bunch of them. You can also rent boats from Kelly’s if you want to. It was a pretty cool place. Thanks so much for following along! We’re in Netarts now – I’ll have another post in a day or two!
That’s pretty funny! Poop bags on display! You must have rented a car because that didn’t look like a Jeep!
Yep, still renting….I really should write a blog post on towing vs. renting. The car we have now is a 2-week reservation, and we’ve been using it alot. I think I am slowly starting to wear Deas down!!
Very funny! And so much better than leaving the bag on the ground. We pass abandoned, filled poop bags on occasion when hiking, and always wonder exactly how the person leaving them thought they’d find their way to a trash can? If they couldn’t be bothered doing so for their own beloved pet, exactly what random stranger did they think would?
Regarding wild blackberries – we’ve likewise been picking and enjoying them for weeks. They make GREAT pancakes if you haven’t tried yet. They pop open during cooking just like blueberries do, and are dee-licious! We just had our second batch this morning as a matter of fact. 🙂
I’ll have to admit that sometimes we leave poop bags on the side of a hiking trail, but ONLY if we know we are coming back that way and can pick it up on the way out. It’s no fun to hike holding a bag of poop. So hopefully some of the bags have owners coming back for them. But based on the amount of times I see people not bother to pick up the poop in the first place, it may not be likely.
We love blueberry pancakes! I’m bringing something with us today to collect blackberries in case we run into another patch – blackberry pancakes sound delicious!
Deas, sorry that I missed you in Portland but enjoyed meeting your wife. Our timing is still off as we have a house rented at Rockaway Beach for a week later this month. My sister, Rosamond is coming from Alabama to join us and our brother, Chris, who lives in Portland. We have a fishing trip planned for the 24th if you are still around and interested. We always max out. —Freddie
Fred, I’m so sorry Deas missed seeing you, and he is too. I can’t believe we’ll miss you again in Rockaway Beach! We’ll be further south in Bandon by then. If something changes we will let you know for sure. Deas wanted me to tell you about a great place we found in Rockaway – Old Oregon Smokehouse. It’s a real dive, but we had some fantastic crab cakes there.
I was totally into the pizza picture and starting to get hungry…and then…I saw the picture of the poop. Not hungry.
LOL…..sorry to ruin your appetite!
Looks like a nice campground to me. And to find some decent pizza is a feat in itself. Not to sure what I’d think when I saw someone driving around with a poop bag hanging from their window though.
Brenda, my point exactly! I always cringe when he does that and we drive past somebody – I can only imagine what they’re thinking!