Reeder’s Beach Resort, Sauvie Island, OR

Reeder’s Beach Resort, Sauvie Island, Oregon. June 2008.

First of all Sauvie Island is a great place, there is a lot of activity here to keep grandkids entertained, and that’s important to us, when we have the grandkids along. Part of this trip was for just the wife and I to get away and Reeder’s isn’t the greatest place for that.

The RV park is of the older variety and rustic, with lots of permanent residents or permanent renters who come out for the weekend. Many of the camper’s could not possibility move even if required and have accumulated lots of stuff stored around them.  But as the weekend goes on, you start to ignore it all and just enjoy the quiet, it is a nice quiet park.  The people you see and the staff are all very friendly and pleasant.

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We had a full hookup site on the river, but had to pull in rather than back in due to the side the hookups were on.  With all the available room, that wasn’t a problem. The photographs show the passing of some large ships down the Columbia River, enroute to the ocean, with the camper in the foreground. Plus we had an Osprey nest just off shore and could watch the babies eat with the help of binoculars.

Reeder’s is still a working farm and there are lots of animals running around at the entrance, but other that the passing duck or geese caravan, they stayed out of the park. The grandkids and their parents came down on Saturday, wife and daughter went shopping in Portland, grandpa, dad, and grandkids went prowling around the island.

First stop was to let my grandson terrorize all the livestock.  The store gave us some day old bread to feed the chickens and ducks.  My grandson wanted to play with the baby gosling, but the adult geese were having none of that, he soon learned that the neck stretching and hissing was a warning and he should stay back.  Although he kept trying to get around them, they kept him at bay. The chickens on the other hand were not as smart.  He almost caught the big rooster twice, but the rooster slipped away at the last second.

Over half of Sauvie Island is a wildlife preserve and requires an Oregon State Fish and Wildlife parking permit to access the area. The other half is working farms, most with U-Pick berries of some sort, strawberries were in while we were there. We planned on going to one of the organic farms and picking, but our first site seeing stop was the public beach.  While there, my grandson, decided to take a dip.  After we fished him out, we decided to go back to the camper, get into swimsuits and return.  So our island touring turned into a great afternoon at the beach.

There is a public beach and also another clothing optional beach on the island, many warm water lakes for fishing, the Columbia River for fishing and on which the beaches are located. A farm with a petting area, lots of berry u-picking farms, plus its flat, so there are tons of people bicycling.  In addition to the domestic animals at Reeder’s, it is a wildlife refuge with lots of viewing areas, so bring your binoculars. We did get to the strawberry farm late in the day and picked a good amount of strawberries, plus bought a flat, just in case.  They were delicious.

Besides Reeder’s there is the Island Cove Park, it looked very nice and had RV hookups, tent sites, and yurts to rent.  Its a couple of miles from the public beach.

The grandkids are already asking when can we take them to camp at Reeder’s, so it was a great success with them.  Next time, I’ll take my fishing gear and give that a try, looked promising and people were fishing from the small beach at Reeder’s, but its not a good beach for the grandkids to use.  The public beach up the road was very nice with plenty of sand to play in. It’s the NW so the water is cool. Reeder’s was $25 a night for full hookups, very reasonable.