Not the Light at the End of the Tunnel!

After our beach experience we drove up to the parking spot for the beach access. Again,we had stayed here before.

When we drove in we noticed the following sign:



I said to Leo, "I think that means no overnight parking too". Leo said, "Nah, it's got a tent. We aren't tenting. We're just sleeping in our vehicle." With a little bit of weariness I thought: They can't possibly check these places every night, and we did stay here before. Okay.

So we reclined the seats, set up the blankets and bunkered down for the night. A few cars drove through in the night, but nothing concerning. We watched a movie on our laptop, read a little and then decided to go to sleep. We were both exhausted as the night before was hot and we all (including the dogs) had a hard time finding the right spot to sleep in. We fell into deep sleeps.

All off a sudden there was a BRIGHT light and loud knocking on our window. We groggily scurry around, the dogs are barking and viciously banging against the window. Leo's trying to find the keys, I'm just stunned. We look out the window and a female officer is standing outside of the car. Leo finally rolls down the window. I'm trying to hold back the dogs. The officer lets us know that it is illegal to overnight sleep in ANY and ALL places in Oregon except designated parks. I look over at the time. It's 3 am. She took Leo's drivers license. Both our stomachs turned as we thought we were going to get a ticket. She wrote down information and informed us we needed to leave. I asked where she recommended us going (I wanted to add... at 3 in the stinking morning, but refrained). She recommended a state park north of us. We dismembered our cumbobulation of bedding material and headed on our way. We decided we would drive our way up to Astoria (home of the movies "Goonies" and "Kindergarten Cop"). We passed the state park and continued on the highway. Eventually we came to a road sign. We couldn't believe it. A whole highway was closed because they close the bridge at night. No turns to the right or left, just a closed highway. We weren't going any further.



Leo was determined we were not going to a park so we could pay to sleep an additional two and a half hours, so we pulled over into a Fred Meyers parking lot and hid behind a camper. We left down our curtain as it would give us away and just slept. (That is if you could call it sleep. The store was having ALL of their stock replenished - or so it seemed- and every few minutes a headlight would pull around the corner. We'd jump and check to see if it was the police. I felt like a fugitive running from the law.)

At 8 am the next morning my mom called on the cell phone and even Logan jumped a foot off the seat. Needless to say, on day three we were a little tired and grumpy.