This is part of our Oregon State Park challenge! Check out our progress here.

We visited one of Oregon’s newest state parks, L.L. “Stub” Stewart.

This time we planned well, and arrived while it was still daylight. Probably because it was less than an hour from home. This place is gorgeous.

The winter weather had started setting in, though. It was in the 50s for most of our stay. We had pre-cooked most of our meals, but they had to be reheated on the camp stove on the front porch.

What camping trip is complete without some geocaching?

And a couple of nice, long, muddy hikes?

The ranger station here has a pretty cool interpretive center with lots of activities. We must have been there for 45 minutes.

Lazy it’s-too-cold-outside time. Probably half our travel weight on any given trip is in books.

Here’s what our evenings looked like.

All too soon, it was time to say goodbye to our trusty little one-room cabin. The kids took charge, playing Vanna White for all the cabin’s features with absolutely no prompting from either of us.

This place was pretty great, and only about 45 minutes from home. There’s a disc-golf course if you’re into that sort of thing, a goodly number of hiking trails, and it’s located about halfway along the Banks-Vernonia State Trail, which is great for biking!