{"id":514,"date":"2008-09-24T11:43:16","date_gmt":"2008-09-24T18:43:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/?p=514"},"modified":"2008-09-24T11:48:32","modified_gmt":"2008-09-24T18:48:32","slug":"champoeg-state-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/2008\/09\/24\/champoeg-state-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Champoeg State Park (Oregon)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlike our misadventure of the night before<\/a>, our two night stay at Champoeg State Park, just south of Portland and north of Salem, was peaceful, quiet, and medically uneventful.\u00a0 We arrived with concerns.\u00a0 Since it was a weekend, and we were only booking a few days in advance, there were just two campsites left.\u00a0 I chose the less crowded one, near a large field.\u00a0 I didn’t know what, if anything, was grown in that field.\u00a0 And Google Maps satellite pictures shed no light.\u00a0 They did, however, reveal the presence of several farms in the area.\u00a0 And that the campsites were fairly spread out.<\/p>\n

As we drove up, we found clean air, large campsites where no one seemed to be a smoker (I saw one cigar many sites away and that was it), and a huge empty field flanked by, what else?, blackberry bushes.<\/p>\n

\"The

The view from our tent<\/p><\/div>\n

Champoeg State Heritage Area<\/strong>
\nChampoeg Rd NE
\nhttp:\/\/www.oregonstateparks.org\/park_113.php<\/a>
\n503-678-1251 Ext. 225
\nReservations: 800-452-5687<\/p>\n

From Southern Oregon (a few minutes from Grant’s Pass), the trip is 230 miles, 3:45 hours.\u00a0 From Petaluma, CA, it would be 10 hours, not counting stops.\u00a0 It’s about 35 minutes south of Portland.<\/p>\n

Directions: From I-5, take Exit 278 and head west. Follow the signs.<\/p>\n

Check in time 4pm; check out time 1pm.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Our

Our campsite from the access road<\/p><\/div>\n

We spoke to the folks in the one site fairly close to us (on the right) and they were nonsmokers but also locals who decided they would rather come back when it wasn’t the middle of a heat wave.\u00a0 So we ended up with no neighbors.<\/p>\n

\"View

View from blackberries next to the field, back to our site<\/p><\/div>\n

Experiences turn on a dime…had our neighbors been heavy smokers or pesticide users, my stay there would have been hell, like it was the night before at Indian Mary<\/a>.\u00a0 For whatever reason though, the campers at Champoeg (inexplicably pronounced sham-poo-ey) were quiet and fairly fume-free (not counting bbq and wood smoke, which fortunately doesn’t bother me, and is pretty impossible to avoid in a campground).<\/p>\n

\"View

View to the right of our site<\/p><\/div>\n

First order of business was getting our tent up.\u00a0 Which took half the time it had the night before.\u00a0 We didn’t bother with the rain flap this time, since it was still quite hot.\u00a0 The night breezes were cooler than at Indian Mary though, and we were able to sleep.\u00a0 Our second night, the heat wave finally broke with a thunderstorm.\u00a0 Michael and I woke up in the middle of the night, put up the rain flap and got our belongings into the car, and made it back inside the tent just as the first raindrops started to fall.\u00a0 It’s an excellent tent and not a drop made it inside.<\/p>\n

\"Miriam

Miriam helps stake the tent<\/p><\/div>\n

We planned to spend all day Saturday in Portland so Friday night, the night we arrived, we decided to have a campfire.\u00a0 Michael bought some wood but neglected to get kindling.\u00a0 All we had was matches, logs, dried grass, a couple twigs from the ground, and 2 pieces of newspaper.<\/p>\n

\"Getting

Getting a fire started<\/p><\/div>\n

Fortunately, all my old Girl Scout training came back to me.\u00a0 I rearranged the logs Michael had laid side by side and, in very little time, we had a fire.<\/p>\n

\"A

A blazing fire<\/p><\/div>\n

The food we cooked (in a cast iron pan) was pupusas<\/a> that I’d made before our trip, and Amy’s gluten-free, vegan pizza. Both were frozen when we left Petaluma but defrosted in our cooler.\u00a0 The pupusas didn’t quite work out.\u00a0 They were very dry.\u00a0 I’m not sure if that was because they were frozen first.\u00a0 On the way back, I had some fresh pupusas I made in Vancouver (didn’t freeze them and didn’t put them in the cooler) and they were very dry eaten at room temperature but fabulous when heated well in a toaster oven (even though those were chilled first).\u00a0 No amount of cooking saved the ones we had at Champoeg though.\u00a0 They were edible, but needed moist sides.<\/p>\n

\"Cyndi

Cyndi & Miriam cooking on a (semi) open fire<\/p><\/div>\n

The pizza though, was another story.\u00a0 Who knew? pizza heated in cast iron over flames is delicious.<\/p>\n

\"Michael

Michael & Miriam preparing fire roasted pizza<\/p><\/div>\n

It was Shabbus, so we lit beeswax candles and put them in a fire-safe place near the picnic table.<\/p>\n

\"Shabbus

Shabbus candles<\/p><\/div>\n

We ended the meal with the top item that Miriam had deemed essential for camping (getting all her camping knowledge from watching Curious George): marshmallows.\u00a0 I found kosher ones (egg, dairy, and gluten-free) at Trader Joe’s.<\/p>\n

\"Michael

Michael & Miriam roasting marshmallows<\/p><\/div>\n

Champoeg has a visitor’s center and museums with tours and kids programs, disc (Frisbee) golf, and huge day-use areas, none of which we were able to see.\u00a0 The Willamette River was way back behind the cabins and Miriam and I didn’t manage to see it either (although Michael wandered past what appeared to be a wading section during a late-night stroll).\u00a0 With 615 acres, there is a lot we just didn’t have time for.<\/p>\n

History, overview of programs, maps.
\nhttp:\/\/www.oregonstateparks.org\/images\/pdf\/champoeg_history.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Full park brochure and map
\nhttp:\/\/www.oregonstateparks.org\/images\/pdf\/champoeg_full.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Campground map
\nhttp:\/\/www.oregonstateparks.org\/images\/pdf\/champoeg_map.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

We were in Campsite B9.\u00a0 The B loop had sites that were much further apart than the A loop.\u00a0 So better for single campers or small groups.\u00a0 If you look on the map, above us and to the right is a large circle labeled club camping.\u00a0 This is the place for groups because there is a shared grassy area in the middle.\u00a0 When we were there, an extended family was having their annual reunion.<\/p>\n

We were warned to bring bug spray and, indeed, there were bugs that came out at dusk.\u00a0 They were smaller than mosquitoes and seemed to bite a little, but didn’t give us typical mosquito welts.<\/p>\n

The park doesn’t use pesticides or herbicides and the bathrooms have no air freshener and are cleaned with “environmentally safe” cleaners (don’t know what, but they had no smell).\u00a0 Each shower had its own full-enclosed changing room, which was nice.\u00a0 Bathrooms had flush toilets.\u00a0 The park host has wood for sale and a cooler with bags of ice.<\/p>\n

Champoeg was an easy commute to Portland, and very livable.\u00a0 If I were in the area, I wouldn’t hesitate to go there again for group camping, single camping, their programs, or a picnic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unlike our misadventure of the night before, our two night stay at Champoeg State Park, just south of Portland and north of Salem, was peaceful, quiet, and medically uneventful.\u00a0 We arrived with concerns.\u00a0 Since it was a weekend, and we were only booking a few days in advance, there were just two campsites left.\u00a0 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[108,100,102,110,99,62],"tags":[98,51,77,78,112],"class_list":["post-514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campgrounds","category-museums","category-parks","category-picnics","category-places-to-go","category-travel","tag-oregon","tag-photos-family","tag-photos-food","tag-photos-misc","tag-photos-places"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":527,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions\/527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}