Camping at Nehalem Bay State Park

Our weekend trip began on Friday morning. It was nice and sunny when we left home, which made it hard to want to leave since this year has been mostly gloomy so far. It became overcast and drizzled a bit on the drive over and we got worried, but when we got to Nehalem Bay it was beautiful out.

The Campground is very nice, the spaces are not *too* close together and fit our 2 tents quite nicely. (Our hugemungous 10 person tent and the boys' smaller 4 person tent). We were camping with my parents who brought their small trailer, they got their own site next to ours, but we could have all fit in one site with no problems I'm sure. The bathrooms were clean and well kept, with private, free showers. There is a playground that the kids enjoyed and at one end of the campground is a horse camp. I took a walk with Kobe at one point through the horse camp, and I just have to say, horse people are so friendly! Every site we walked by where the people were out caring for their horses they called us over to chat and pet the horses. Kobe enjoyed this very much, and wanted to meet ALL of the horses, and began talking about having his own horses (I informed him we do not exactly have a big enough yard to have a horse) and we talked about looking into riding lessons near home.

walking down the beach trail

The water was freezing! (as it always is on the Oregon coast)

The beach was just a short trail away and after we set up our tents and had lunch we walked out there to spend the afternoon running in the waves, making sand castles, and digging holes. It was Cooper (the dog)'s first time at the ocean, and he had a blast too!

It was only in the 60's the whole time we were there, and at times it was very windy on the beach, but the sand was warm, and we love sitting by the camp fire. Each evening they have a show in their amphitheater and we attended the Saturday evening presentation about old shipwrecks around Nehalem Bay.


The campground also featured horse rentals. My mom, me, Kobe and Makai all went for a ride. We followed trails and rode them out on the beach and on the bay side. Asher was too young to ride one on his own, but they let him do a short pony ride around the stable area. It was a one hour long ride and pleasant. The kids very much enjoyed it.

Riding horses, for those not used to it, can be very hard on your legs! My knees were killing me afterwords. This is not a natural position for your legs to be in for an extended period of time. After we dismounted Kobe sat down on a step. He said he could not get up to walk back to camp because his hips hurt too much, but in the same breath talked about "next time" he gets to ride a horse, and what about those riding lessons?

On Sunday we packed up and headed down the coast a bit before heading back home. We made a short stop in Garibaldi to check out these trains.

You could go for a sightseeing ride on this one, but we opted against that. There was also a small playground close by that the boys played on for a bit.

After the long weekend we were all exhausted! The boys slept all the way home. I hope all of you had a wonderful weekend too!