We had such a delightful stay at Winchester Bay, that it was tempting to stay around longer. But we were also looking forward to the next stop up the coast – exploring the Yachats area, and touring Heceta Head Lighthouse.
So we pulled out of Salmon Harbor Marina and headed up with coast, with a stop in the lovely town of Florence for catching up on laundry and grabbing some Chinese food for lunch (loved our fortune – suggesting we should head west!)
Tillicum Beach Campground – Yachats, OR
We had two glowing recommendations from blog readers to check out Tillicum Beach Campground, run the by US Forest Service. It sits right along the ocean a few miles north of Yachats.
After learning that the state park closest to Heceta Head Lighthouse – Carl Washbourne Campground, has no hope of cellular signal, we were completely sold on Tillicum.
I looked online to confirm the campground was indeed first come first serve, which most of it is. However, I spotted site #12 with a gorgeous direct and unobstructed ocean view. The photos also showed the site had lots of open sun, perfect for solar panels! The site was reservable, so we went against our general preference and paid the $8 reservation fee snag the site, plus $24/night for no hook-ups.
And we are so glad we did.. the site was absolutely divine. There are other great sites in the campground that we would have been happy with, but none that provided the unique combination of view, open sun and right next to one of the two staircases down to the beach.
We absolutely loved this campground, and took many long strolls on the beach and watched the waves dance as we worked away with our amazing office views.
As our site had no hook-ups, we also put out the solar panels. We had a lot of cloudy and rainy weather during our 3-night stay, so we did end up needing to run the generator for about an hour to get through .
One our non-rainy day, we took off for some exploring and backtracked about 15 miles south to Heceta Head for our lighthouse tour. Heceta Head is probably one of the more iconic lighthouses sitting up upon a cliff visible right from Highway 101. However, some trees have grown up that block some of the view of the lighthouse from afar.
Heceta Head recently underwent a total renovation, and looks fabulous. It’s operated by the state park systems and the tours run by volunteers just like our gig down at Cape Blanco. But as the host sites are within Carl Washborne State Park – without cell signal – the assignment wouldn’t work for us techno-connected RVers.
On the way back to Tillicum, we spent some time meandering up the coast in the Mini Cooper, and enjoyed hiking at some of the waypoints.
On the way home we stopped at Luna Sea’s Restaurant in Yachats for a late lunch of freshly caught salmon fish tacos. Very delicious!
Other posts in this Oregon lighthouse series thus far:
- Umpqua River Lighthouse & Winchester Bay
- Cape Arago Lighthouse & Charleston
- Coquille River Lighthouse & Bandon
- Cape Blanco Lighthouse (where we were tour guides at)
Millenicom Updates:
For those following the Millenicom customer acquisition by Verizon, we’ve published two new articles in the past day that you might want to checkout:
Make sure you stop at the Green Salmon for some of the best bakery, bear claws, scones, you name it West of the Hudson! 🙂
Do they specialize in gluten free options? Otherwise, a no-go for us 🙂
Bet you laughed at the fortune – unless you’re already planning a Hawaii trip 🙂 Love your camp site. Falling asleep to the waves is a favorite for us. Seems almost sad that the trees cover up the lighthouse after her lovely renovations. Still, the hint of her through the forests is very enticing! So many great places along that coast, thanks for sharing this wonderful exploration.
Falling asleep to the waves was amazing.. and we indeed did laugh at the fortune, and considered a flight to Hawaii 🙂
How is the verizon and ATT coverage there?
We had great coverage at the campground… but indeed, at the lighthouse and state park, there was nothing.
This post brings back a lot of memories for us, Cherie! We were fortunate to catch an evening tour of Heceta Head in the 1990’s. That was our first experience of seeing a Fresnel lens actually working. That pinwheel over the Pacific was magical. Thank you so much for this series of posts. Great stuff!
We’ve become a bit nuts about these Fresnel lenses, they are just amazing.
Frederika and I missed you at Cape Blanco by a day, I think, on our way back South from a 9 state, 4000 mi circuit…had hoped to meet both you and Nina & Paul – but had to content ourselves with just them…! (actually had a great time there (beautiful!), and with them. Put on an impromptu concert for them and a few others, too!) You are getting dangerously close to my hometown of Lincoln City… Hope we get a chance to meet one of these days – if you’re going to be in Quartzsite, Nina asked if I might be interested in performing at their meet and greet, and I was happy to say yes… PS: Thanks so much for all you do – we have gained a lot from it, and appreciate it greatly.
Nina & Paul sent us messages about your visit. Wish we had known you were inbound and wanted to meet up, we might have been persuaded to stick around.
Hopefully see you down in the desert this winter!