The Road Trip from Birkfest to Camp 18

Jenny and I took a road trip with Ella in tow on July 5th and made a loop starting at Highway 202 (Nehalem Highway) out of Astoria to Jewell, OR then we took Hwy 47 to Vernonia, OR then took Timber Road to Hwy 26 then took 26 east to Camp 18 which is east of Seaside. After eating we took 26 and 101 back to Astoria.

It was a beautiful day in NW Oregon and a fun little afternoon jaunt since neither one of us had been to any of these locations before. It’s always been fun to go where we’ve never been before and see new places and people.

Birkenfeld County Store, home of "Birkfest."

The first stop, and one of the coolest, was when we stopped at the Birkenfeld Country Store northwest of Jewell. When got out of the car we could hear live music coming from the store, as it turned “Birkfest” was in full swing. We met Mike the owner of the store, a real character to be sure, who told us he was having a little music festival on the back deck of his store.

While we were there a 15 year old kid named Nolan Garret from Tacoma, WA was doing a set. Wow! For a 15 year old kid he could really play a guitar and sing. His Mother who was in the audience gave us some background; he started playing the guitar when he was 8 years old. He’s a very talented kid with a bright future and after she asked me 3 times, I caved and bought his $10 CD.

We stayed and watched him play a few songs and after we got back in the car to leave Jenny and I had a good laugh about stumbling onto Birkfest. The random nature of driving through and stopping there when it was going on cracked us up. The store is the only business for miles out in the middle of nowhere. Hilarious! Mike the owner said they have live music every Saturday night so we may try to go back out to his place. The burgers and sandwiches he was serving looked great so we plan to go back and make an evening of it sometime.

We then took a detour to see Fishhawk Lake. It’s a cool little place tucked away off the road. It amazed us how many homes bordered the lake. I’d never seen a drain like the one that’s right near the damn. It’s not a big lake but a very beautiful area. We heard Steelhead can be caught in the lake.

Then we took a drive by the new school they built in Jewell. It’s very nice building and somewhat extravagant for a small community their size, I wonder how much it cost the taxpayers?

So it was off to Vernonia after that. We first stopped outside of Vernonia and took a walk by Vernonia Lake. We drove through town after that and saw how the Nehalem River flood of 2007 damaged the schools, one was still standing. It shocked us just how big the town of Vernonia was, so I’m sure that many of the town’s resident really suffered after the flood.

We left Vernonia and took the pretty drive down Timber Road to Hwy 26 then over to Camp 18. We’d lived here for 6 years and never stopped at Camp 18. We heard it had good food and that on occasion they’d have a buffet that was supposedly a good meal too. They weren’t having a buffet when we stopped in so we had dinner instead.

The Cabin is a huge structure and we were impressed how many people were in the dining room when we walked in. I had the Lumber Jack Porter House Steak; Jenny had the Razor Clams and a small steak. The Beef Barley soup was very good but I'll be honest, there are better steaks to be had in the area. It's a fun little tourist place but the food was average. I didn’t know they had a little memorial museum dedicated to loggers that have died in Oregon. I thought it was very cool and a nice tribute. All in all it was a fun and full beautiful day to be living in NW Oregon.