I hadn't intended to write anything about this long, simple weekend camping trip in September, but I realized on our last day out that we had just had a really nice time at two state parks that we have heard some people think should be closed: Brooks Memorial State Park outside of Goldendale, Washington, and Cottonwood Canyon State Park outside of Wasco, Oregon. Neither should be closed - in fact, both are very much needed, not just wanted, and deserve far, far more attention.

The weekend after Labor Day is usually when we are into our second week of our annual motorcycle trip (and celebrating Stefan's birthday), but for the last two years, we have had to do the annual motorcycle trip much earlier in the summer because of Stefan's work (we went to Nevada in July). So we decided to turn the weekend after Labor Day into a camping-with-our-dog getaway. Stefan took Friday and Monday off so we would have plenty of time to get wherever it was we decided to go and spend more time being there than getting there. We had intended to go Mt. Hebo and stay at the developed campground, Hebo Lake Campground, on the West side of the mountain, and maybe, the last night, on the primitive site, South Lake Dispersed Area, on the east side of the mountain, reachable only by a rather precarious state forest road. But the weather forecast for the area looked bad for our weekend. Also, when we checked out the primitive site the weekend before via motorcycle, we found a family living there, including three adults with very special needs, and they were not only taking up a large portion of the site, they also were obviously using the fire pit, despite a ban on forest fires and profoundly dry, dangerous conditions. We also considered Gifford Pinchot National Forest, one of our favorites, but, again, the weather looked crappy.

Looking at the weather forecast, I suggested we head to Brooks Memorial State Park, to the North East of us on the other side of Columbia Gorge. We had stayed there twice before, just as a stop over on our way to somewhere else, and I wasn't sure what there was really to do at the park, but the weather forecast looked decent. Also, I wasn't sure if it was still open: the last time we stayed there, we were told that state officials were looking to close the campground, and maybe the entire park, to save money. I checked the web site: it's open and it has more than 600 square acres. Unfortunately, the Goldendale observatory is closed for renovations until 2020 - we would love to see it someday. We headed out, with no reservations, on a Friday afternoon, hoping to stay at least two nights at the park.

When the Goldendale observatory is open, Brooks Memorial is most definitely a destination park (remember: you cannot bring your dog into the observatory, and you will need to drive to the observatory), but as an alternative while it's closed, you can bring your own telescope or star chart and hike up the open land next to the campground - it's owned by Bonneville Power Administration, but it's public land and you can hike on the road, and it provides a stunning view of the night sky. St. John the Forerunner Greek Orthodox Monastery is just down the road (no hiking trail to get there, and the road is too dangerous to walk along) and has a cafe with super delicious food - just remember that it's CLOSED ON SUNDAY. In addition, the tiny town of Maryhill is around 25 miles away and has a replica of Stonehenge that overlooks the gorge, the Maryhill Museum of Art, an award-winning winery and a state park of its own, with a swimming area - but the site is notoriously windy and campsites have no shade. I did get a peak over the hills at Maryhill Loops road, a private road with many "twisties" that we got to enjoy back in 2012. In addition, in the other direction, Fort Simcoe State Park, one of the few remaining pre-Civil War forts in the west, is about 65 miles away (no camping there).

If you are headed to Brooks Memorial State Park from the South, don't worry that it's going to be out in the middle of this treeless landscape and you are going to get blown away: the trees start on US Highway 97 heading North just after you pass the turnoff for Goldendale, and the park is in a tree-covered canyon that largely protects campers from crazy winds.

There are 23 RV sites with FULL hooks ups, making this a very popular place for RVs. What's nice about the full hookups is that, with readily-available electricity, RVs tend NOT to run their generators, a blessing for tent campers. There are 22 sites for tents or micro campers. Sites 25 through 35 are in two terraced rows and are near the bathrooms, which have flush toilets and showers and, when we were there, spotlessly clean. But there's no shrubbery around them or between them, and when this area is full, campers are side by side - your tent might be right next to the picnic table of the site next door, and you will hear conversations all around you. When the campground is full, you aren't going to get much sleep unless everyone adheres to quiet hours, and a few years ago, the camp host did NOTHING to enforce this. Still, we prefer this area for staying to sites 36 through 45, which are father down the road and do have a lot of shrubbery between each site, giving a sense of privacy, but which are WAY far from the bathrooms (there is a pit toilet there) and are really close to the road - and the road is way, way busy. We can't believe sites 36 through 45 are $5 more expensive than the other tent camping sites! When we were there this time, sites 36 and 37 had large, old-fashioned, thick-fabric tents erected atop wooden floors, but I can't find any information on how to rent such.

There's also a big group cooking shelter near the bathrooms in the day use park. This is a good place to cook if you are in a tent and it's raining, as long as it's not being used by a group.

The group camping and the Environmental Learning Center (ELC) are across US Highway 97. The ELC area is beautiful: there are lots of cabins in a tree-covered area, all clustered around a gorgeous green space and a big hall with a full kitchen - it would be a great place for a retreat or a wedding. In fact, when we were there, we saw people sitting around the green area playing instruments. It turned out to be the annual gathering of the Mid-Columbia Folklife Society.

We stuck to just hiking around the campground and disk golf course and enjoying the camp host presentation and it was enough for a full day and a half at Brooks Memorial State Park. But with that said, here are some things Washington State Parks REALLY needs to do regarding Brooks Memorial State Park:

• There needs to be a map of the hiking trails in the park, posted to all of the information boards. The trail heads are really hard to find and we had no idea how far any trail was once we started it or how far away it would take us from the campground.
   
• There needs to be obvious signs posted on hiking trails, directing hikers so that we stay on the trail and don't end up on a road that turns out to be a private dirt road and a very irate and very fat man drives his ATV down the road only to be an ass to us. Surely a Girl Scout working towards her Gold Award, a Boy Scout working for his Eagle Scout rank, a nearby chapter of the Sierra Club or some other civic group could undertake this.
   
• After Labor Day, there is no need to have the camp host or the parks worker or whoever does it post a sign every day on the message board telling people without reservations that they can't stay there for more than one night. There are PLENTY of camp sites after Labor Day. We violated the rules and stayed two nights without a reservation - we were alone in the tent sites one night and there were just two other sites occupied the next.
   
• The web page for Brooks Memorial State Park says nothing about the Goldendale Observatory being closed until 2020.
   
• You might want to post something about the powerlines making noise. We've been to the campground three times, but this was the first time they made noise, and it was quite disconcerting to walk near them and hear it.

So, yes, we enjoyed our two nights and full day and a half at Brooks Memorial State Park. It most certainly can be a destination park. We will go back for sure when the observatory is open, and if we are ever on a motorcycle trip, it will probably yet again be our overnight stay. But if it's full and you are in a tent, you better have great earplugs. 

Sunday in the late morning, we headed South on 97 and turned off at Goldendale to drive up to the observatory, just to see where it was for our visit in 2020. While we were outside the gate for the site, we checked our phones to look up the Oregon State Parks in the Gorge. Deschutes River State Recreation Area looked best, so we decided to head there. As it was Sunday night and a week after Labor Day, I was expecting a largely empty campground. I was wrong. Deschutes River State Recreation Area was still full of campers from the night before and still packed of day visitors, though many were packing up. The tent camp sites are small and packed in right next to each other, and big trucks in massive campers are allowed to park in the tent sites, meaning it would feel like camping in a grass parking lot next to vehicles. The site is so popular because it's right on the Deschutes River and it's in a canyon, set away from the gorge, protected from the wind, and quite lush and green. But we left. We had no interest in camping in a crowd. 

We continued down Biggs-Rufus Highway, which runs parallel to US Highway 84, intending to get back onto 84 West, but we stopped at Celilo Park. We didn't really know what it was - it's not a state park. Turns out its a free camping and picnic area owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It's right on the Columbia River and the camping/picnic lawn is very large and mostly tree-covered. There are no specific, designated camp sites - you just pick as spot and throw down your tent, or stay in your camper in the parking lot. There are flush toilets but no showers. There's a boat launch and we saw that some fishermen set up camp on the shore, then launched their boat from the boat ramp, parked their truck in the lot and moored their boat on the shore right next to where they were camping. But Celilo Park is right next to the highway and train tracks, plus there are train tracks on the other side of the gorge, so it's VERY noisy, even without wind. And as it's right on the river, it's can also be crazy windy. I wouldn't seek out this park to camp, but if you are passing through and just really need to stop and sleep, this is a great option.

Since the wind wasn't crazy at Celilo Park at that moment, we walked down to the shore and I touched the water - I think it's the first time I've ever touched the waters of the Columbia River. Lucinda was NOT happy about it: the sound of the rocks as we walked on them disturbed her hugely. We walked back to a picnic table near where our car was parked and pulled out our food for lunch. I want to remember this site when we're out on the motorcycle - it's a very nice spot to take a break if it's not crazy windy.

We weren't feeling optimistic about the rest of the state parks in the gorge heading closer to Portland - we expected them to be just as crowded. And online reviews said the train noise could be unbearable. So Stefan suggested we try Cottonwood Canyon State Park, which is much farther inland and away from the Columbia River. We headed back to the frontage road and then took Fulton-Canyon Road / 206 / Celilo-Wasco Highway up out of the gorge and onto the rolling plains at the top of the plateau, through a sea of windmills and the small town of Wasco. After about 30 miles we reached Cottonwood Canyon State Park.

This is a brand new park, established in 2013, and is now the second largest state park in Oregon, encompassing 8,000 acres (3,200 ha) (the largest is Silver Falls State Park). It has 21 primitive sites for tents and self-contained RVs (max site size is 75 feet) and a lot of space in between each. Each has a wind break for tents because of the winds - at times, especially at night, quite intense. It's open year-round. There are also seven hiker/biker camp sites next to the main campground. All sites are available on a first-come, first-served basis. There's pit toilets in the campground, and flush toilets up at the entrance near the old barn and small visitor's center. The campground and the hike and bike trails are on the lower John Day River - at the time we were there, it was so low one could walk across it. There are also communal bicycles and fishing poles which are FREE TO USE. There is a lot of construction going on between the barn and the campground - four cabins, a shower facility and an "experience" center are being built, but no construction happens in the evenings, on nights or on weekends.

According to the park employee I spoke with, the park will not turn any camper away. If you get there and the campground is full, you can camp up around the barn in the designated area or stay in the parking lot. One of our complaints about campgrounds in the USA is that they rarely have overflow camping, where ANYONE with a tent can camp, even if we're all right next to each other, or a lot where people driving campers can park. Any campground that is somewhat out of the way - at least 50 miles from another campground or city with hotels - should have this. Not everyone on the road can make reservations as they travel, and sometimes, travelers are just so tired they cannot go on.

I LOVE this park. I love the concept, I love the high desert canyon look, I love the rustic feel, I love the amazing stars at night... there's easy access down to the John Day River and there is an easy trail around the campground along the river to the visitor's center and then another simple one on the other side of the road that heads back to the campground, passing by Sage Knob, which offers a lovely view of the area. There are words carved into the wood all around the site, telling stories of early settlers or of a tree or the age of the land or local history. The barn, the size of the camp sites, the wind breaks for tents, the big tree and bench at the start of the main hike and bike trail, the communal bikes, the river access, the scenery, the barbed wire sculptures - IT'S FANTASTIC! A great site for hiking or biking and definitely camping - but not in the summer and most definitely not without bringing a LOT of water with you when you hike. This is high desert, and daytime temps in the summer are often over 100 - there is VERY little shade - none at all in the campground or on the trails. You also have to be prepared for the wind, especially at night. As I mentioned, there are wind breaks in each site for tents, and you absolutely need them. My impression is that campfires are usually banned because of the winds and intensely dry conditions. The warnings on the information sign can be intimidating - warning of rattlesnakes, of cougars, of puncture vines, of the need for water, of no cell phone service, of how far it is to a hospital.

A couple we met at the visitor's center, playing checkers, told us that there is still people that want Cottonwood Canyon State Park closed. I really hope this park not only gets more support but that Oregon State Parks keeps this campground primitive, because it keeps out campers that aren't going to appreciate the silence and sounds and feel of the park. We don't need yet another park with a long line of RVs running their generators. The only thing I'd change about the park: it needs another vault toilet at the other side of the campground, near the pay station. We'll definitely be back - next time, on our motorcycles.

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