10/7/12 -- Home at Last!

On Thursday, we were ready to leave for home, on the last day of this fabulous trip.  But before we left the Long Beach Peninsula, we had one more task to do. 

Many years ago, sometime in the 70's, Adina learned a special way to take care of crystals and stones.  They get dusty and dirty and washing these objects with soap and water, although an option, is not the most effective method. 

The best way to clean this objects of beauty is to soak them in seawater.  Mixing salt and water to make a brine is a poor substitute.  I realize that this isn't easy for those of you who live far from salt water but at least, now you know.

After living in WI for 12 years, our supply of seawater was long depleted.  Before we left Long Beach, we wanted some salt water to take home.  At the beach, Adina donned her new water boots. 

I used to have water boots when we lived here before.  Our old water boots were army green with wide yellow laces.  When we got to WA we started keeping an eye out for new boots for Adina.  Although I walk without a cane now, my balance still is not good enough to be walking in water.

When we got to Forks, we shopped often in a store called The Outfitter.  It was several stores in one -- Thriftway groceries, a clothing store, shoe outlet and hardware store.  It was a fun store and we stopped there everytime we went into town. 

We got head lamps there.  They have five LED lights and four settings.  We used them instead of flashlights and for reading in the trailer from then on.  Best of all, we found boots for Adina but there was no sign of our old green boots on the shelves.  Adina's new boots are all in the latest style!  


Wild Pink Water Boots

So the way you clean crystals and stones is, after you pull on your most stylish water boots, is that you take an empty plastic milk jug and stand at the edge of the surf, trying to time the waves.  This isn't east at Ocean Park because the waves come in from all directions, causing undertow and confusion. 


The waves just keep on coming

The farthest waves are as much as 6' high but by the time they have crested several times and finally spread across the sands, they are less than a foot tall.  Except when the ocean fools you and sends a wave that is well over the top of your boots.

SAdina waded out into the sea and caught wave after wave until the plastic gallon jug was about 2/3 full.  She was careful, but even so, one wave caught her dropped into her boot, giving her a very wet foot.  

Over and over, as the sea kept rolling in, the jug filled.  At last, Adina returned to the beach, kind of like Aphrodite rising from the waves (but with more clothes).  Success!  We have our seawater.  Our crystals will shine again.  

Success, at last!

We hooked up the trailer and pulled out on a sunny, beautiful, crisp morning.  We followed Hwy 101 across the mighty Columbia River to Oregon.  At it's mouth, the Columbia is wide, over half a mile.  Sand bars shift day by day.  A large sandbar rises at it's mouth. 

It isn't the biggest river in the world but it's mouth is the fifth most dangerous crossing in the world.  Shipwrecks dot the river bed and the ocean shore like a bad case of measles.  (Check http://www.mapbureau.com/launch/shipwrecks/ to see what I mean.  They only have located some of the wrecks.  Others are still lost.  Tides push the fresh water of the Columbia backwards creating a zone of constant fury at the mouth.  


The tideal action at the mouth of the Columbia makes for dangerous crossings
Note the line from WA south to Astoria OR -- that's the bridge we crossed on Hwy 101
(public domain photo from Wikipedia)

Huge container ships ply the river, commercial fishing boats crowd the shores and logs lay like telephone poles, waiting to be shipped to Japan.  House boats (regular houses that float on the river) line the quieter tributaries. 

People here have named their places with great creativity.  Some places retained some version of the Indian names like Cladskanie and Scappose.  Others are called names like Svensen and Knappa.  We saw Lost Creek, which someone obviously found, and Nice Creek, which somebody liked. 

Hwy 30 runs along the river, offering one great view after another.  We were in a hurry to get home by this time and didn't stop to take pictures.  That will wait for another time.  We enjoyed the trip and took snapshots in our minds.  The deciduous trees are just beginning to turn.  Underbrush shows leaves of yellow and red.  Forests -- fir, hemlock, larch and cedar -- mix with deciduous trees along the Columbia.   


A mixed forest lines the road - this picture was taken in the spring. 
As we drove, the leaves were beginning to turn.
(public domain picture from Wikipedia)

I had forgotten that we had one more range of mountains to cross -- the Coastal Range, also called The Pacific Coast Range.  We drove around the north end of these mountains when we circled the Olympic Peninsula.  Now we needed to cross them again to get home.  Near the Columbia River, some peaks rise to over 3,000' but the passes are lower. 


The Coastal Mountains of OR - view from Saddle Mountain
(public domain photo from Wikipedia)

Like many Pacific Northwest mountains, the Coast Range was formed by volcanic action.  Some lava flows spilled into the Columbia River.  The passes we crossed were relatively low, compared to some of the mountains we've experienced on this trip.  Mountains are really very, very big hills.  It only took 4-5 miles of downhill driving after the pass on this one.  I love driving in the mountains!

When Lewis and Clark sought a route to the west, they ended up at the mouth of the Columbia.  Since they explored both sides of the river, both WA and OR claim them.  The Lewis and Clark Trail is found on both sides of the river.  There's a great interpretive center on the OR side. 

We crossed the Columbia River back into WA at Longview WA, driving across the Lewis and Clark Bridge.  Like all bridges on this part of the Columbia River, this bridge is extrememly high.  Sea-going ships must be able to pass beneath it.  At the highest point, we looked down at grain elevators far below us.  It was kind of exciting, like being on a ferris wheel.   


The Lewis and Clark Bridge at Longview WA
Note the very large grain elevators peeking beneath the bridge
(public domain photo from Wikipedia)

We took the freeway the last 30 miles to our new home.  Although we've avoided freeways for most of our trip, enjoying scenic byways and back roads, at this point, the freeway looked good.  We were ready to be home.

After we got the trailer parked and did a grocery run to Safeway (kind of like Pik'n'Save), I snapped this picture of our new home.  It's a duplex but the other unit lies perpendicular to our unit so we are not much aware of it.  It feels like a house, not a duplex.  The exterior walls are lovely yellow and Suzy is the landowner from heaven -- she is on top of everything! 


At home in our new home - we even have a little fall pumpkin installed by our front door

Our granddaughter, Kelsey, met the moving van when it arrived in August.  She told the movers where to put everything.  She did a great job and so when we walked in it looked like our home.  Well, except for mountains of boxes in every room! 


And these are only the kitchen/dining room boxes!
You should see the rest of the rooms.

Saturday (yesterday) we dived into being home.  We got most of our clothes hung up in the bedroom.  We each have our own eight' closet!  What luxury that is!  Our bedroom is 16x16'.  It's the biggest bedroom we've ever had!

Our home is a two-bedroom/two bath dwelling with 1100 sq ft.  Our living room/dining room combination is 25' long and about 14' wide.  We have an open concept place with dining room/living room/kitchen.   Our living room area is alread set up, thanks to Kelsey's work.   


Two big windows let in a lot of light to our living room/dining room
The gas fireplace (oh, yeah!) is out of sight to the right

Our attached double garage is a wonder after being limited to a 4x4' storage locker.  We'll park the car on one side and use the other for storage.  Best of all, I will have a workbench.  I've missed that.  After my accident, I didn't dare use tools for a long time because of the way my hands shaked and jerked.  Now I'll be able to do some simple repairs, maybe a little woodwork again.

Adina's sister-of-choice, Barbara, came from Seattle for a couple of days to help with the initial unpacking.  After she saw the whole place, she said that this place would rent for $2000/mo in Seattle.  Wow!  We aren't paying that much though.  We love this place already and feel so fortunate to have found it.

Barbara and Adina began to bring order out of chaos by putting the kitchen together.  As Barbara said, "When you have the kitchen and the bathroom put together, you can start to function."  (Personally, I'd add the need for putting the computer and coffee pot in place.) 

By the end of the day, the kitchen was finished and looking great!  Our refrigerator dispenses filtered water and ice cubes.  That's a luxury we've never had before.  We have lots of storage space.  When everything was put away, we ended up with shelves that are sparsely full and some that are empty.  


Our beautiful kitchen
Adina is excited about having a window over the sink!

Almost everything made it here in one piece.  A couple of pieces got nickes and scratches.  Our pioneer woman statue lost the brim of her hat but I think I can glue it back.  In other moves, we lost a box or two but this time all our boxes arrived.  We feel good about the move.  

On Sunday, Adina and Barbara worked on unpacking our good dishes and putting them all away in the kitchen queen.  Adina got the kitchen queen from an antique store in Seattle years ago. 

In the late 1800's/early 1900's, space was limited for our ancestors.  These women didn't have fancy kitchens like we do with tons of counter space.  The kitchen queen was a piece of furniture designed to hold dishes, pots and pans, food and baking goods.  Ours has a flour sifter built in.

Our kitchen queen holds our good dishes and special vases.  In the next picture, Barbara and Adina are starting to open the third or fourth box and to fold another mountain of packing paper.  
  

Meanwhile, I worked on the garage.  I don't know how it happened, but we were already short on shelf space so I got another unit from the hardware store.  Our hardware store serves free popcorn to shoppers!  It took me a whole bag of popcorn to decide on my purchase!  Not bad!

Today, the unpacking continues.  We have a few pieces of furniture we're looking for like a couple of bookcases and a dining room set.  We're beginning to haunt thrift stores for that.  We need to get some kind of sleeper sofa or chair for Adina's study but in the meantime, we have the rollaway. 

All in all, we're home.

Our traveling days aren't over, though.  Next week, I'll drive up the Columbia Gorge a ways and then cross the Cascades on a low southern pass up into eastern WA to Yakima for the Turner Lectures.  The Disciples Church, where I hold standing, offers this educational opportunity for clergy and lay people.  Adina will attend a nursing conference next month in Seattle, 4 hrs north of Vancouver.  We'll drive up and visit Adina's parents at the same.

Soon, our feet will begin to itch and we'll hook up the trailer again for another jaunt, much shorter than this last one.  The road always calls us.  The ocean waits for us and keeps her waves rolling.  The mountains have campgrounds where we've never stayed and trails we want to take.  And we have a new city, Vancouver, to explore.

The adventure is over.  The adventure has just begun. 

I can't wait for the next chapter!  

10/3/12 -- Our Last Days on the Long Beach Peninsula

We have enjoyed the wildlife all across the country, sharing space and time with our furry and feathered neighbors.  Yesterday I showed you a couple of the deer here.  Sometimes a herd of 7 spends time at the RV park.  Nice!  

Ever since we left Yellowstone where a raven imparted wisdom to Drichab-Anna and Winston, we have seen ravens nearly every day.  This morning, Adina saw two of them.  Their deep-throated, gravely voices are different from the raucous crow-calls.  Ravens don't talk all the time like crows, but when they do, they always have something important to say.  We always listen carefully.

I was talking to the woman in the office at our RV park this morning and she told us about the problem they are having with bears on the Long Beach Peninsula. It is so bad that the bears have ripped the enclosures for the garbage cans totally apart several times. The bears pull the board right out, they are so strong. 

 

At another RV park where we stopped to check it out, the owner told us the same thing. They have nailed their garbage cans to the wall of one of the buildings. She didn't say how they got the garbage out of them. The problem is that people have fed the bears and now they come demanding food, are refused and then get destructive.

The woman at our RV park said that she thought they had more bears than anywhere else in WA, maybe in the whole country. I don't know if that's accurate, but it does indicate a sizable bear population.  However, we haven't seen any bears on this trip, even in Yellowstone.

We took a drive to the north end of the Peninsula to the little town of Oysterville.  This town was established in the 1860's when companies came in to gather oysters.  They hired native people to gather the oysters.  The companies sent the oysters to San Francisco by the shipload to be served in SF's most exclusive restaurants.

Now you have to have a license, like a fishing license, to gather clams.  This month is clam season for 2 days, 2 hours each day.  All the shellfish is diminished by over-gathering.  Oysters are so rare that companies farm them in the bays.

There is still an oyster company at Oysterville but mostly it is a sleepy little burg.  Houses have the dates when they were built, ranging from 1865-1920.  We found a lovely little church, originally a Baptist church but now a historical landmark.  The furnishings were simple.  The seating area was divided -- women sat on one side, men on the other.  The steeple and window surrounds are covered with simple gingerbread. 


The Oysterville Church

The one-room schoolhouse is is good shape.  The picket fence in the foreground is loaded with lichen.  Lichen looks benign but it eats the paint from wood, then eats into the wood.  It is one of the forest's means of renewing itself. 


Oysterville School - the fence is furry with lichen

We spent a delightful day in the town of Long Beach.  There isn't a lot we needed there but it's kind of obligatory if you are on the peninsula. 

Long Beach is a tourist town, complete with motels, RV parks, go-kart track, rentable pedal cars and miniature golf.  If you are into those things, the town can provide endless entertainment.  When I came here when Pete was little, he was always drawn to the go-karts and golf.

It also boasts some of the usual tourist shops and a few unusual ones.  We spent a delightful day browsing the shops there.  Most have the usual gee-gaws.  Some sell sweats and tee shirts.  Others sell "regular" clothes.  The best shops sell kites.  Lots and lots of kites.  We got a little rainbow twirler for our new home.

Long Beach claims to be the longest beach in the world.  The sign at the entrance to the beach says it on an arch that spans the road. 


Long Beach's Beach Arch

Long Beach is over 30 miles long.  And you can drive on it.  I don't mean that people sneak their cars down onto the beach.  WA treats this beach as part of the road system.  It even has signs at the entrances about "rules of the road." 


"Rules of the Road" for driving on the beach

That doesn't mean that there is a road on the beach.  That means that a road leads down to the beach and then people drive where they will on the hard packed sand.  The beach is wide.  When the tide is out, it's really wide.  As long as they stay on the hard sand, they're okay.    


Car tracks crisscross each other into the fog

I used to drive on the beach too, but quit when I understood the impact on the ecology, how it hurts the plants and animals.  I suppose that environmental groups would like to see the practice stopped, but I doubt that it will be since it's such a tradition. 

One of the parts of driving on the beach that I always enjoyed was the freedom from lanes and borders.  I also enjoyed watching the folks who thought they could park next to the "road" on the hard sand.  It was fun to watch them try to dig themselves out of the soft sand as their wheels spun and dug them deeper and deeper.  They should know better than to park on soft sand. 

This guy parked right by the dunes.  We watched for a while.
He didn't get stuck -- this time.

We didn't see anyone get stuck when we were on the beach but we saw a lot of people driving.  One jeep drove off the beach, his bumpers loaded with driftwood logs lashed on.  Mostly, we saw sight-seers. 


We watched this truck drive towards us
he's driving close to the water -- tough on birds and sand-life

The strong tides and riptides at this beach also leave their mark on the sand.  These sand-ripples were carved by tidal movement and by the constant wind.  No matter what you do on the beach, it leaves its mark. 



Sand ripples

We enjoyed a picnic lunch at the beach at Long Beach the other day.  This fine seagull met us.  Well, maybe he was waiting for a hand-out.  When we didn't come through, he scolded us with prolific language for one so young.  We knew he was a teenager  because of his plumage.  Seagulls remain grey or mottled brown  when they are young.  They don't get their white and grey feathers until they are 4 years old. 



A young seagull greeter sitting on a log at the edge of the parking lot, right next to our car.
He posed for this picture.
I didn't pay him.

Many of the seagulls sat on top of people's cars and watched to see if anyone threw stale bread out of their windows.  Some people did.  As long as people do it, the seagulls will watch. 

Other seagulls laid in the sun and ignored us as they concentrated on their noon-tide siesta.  When I lived here before, we took seagulls for granted most of the time.  They were pretty when they flew, interesting if they did something unusual, irritating if they were too aggressive begging or just part of the scenery.  Now that we have been gone so long, we delight in watching seagull behavior as if for the first time. 


This young fella got up from his siesta to ask us a question.
I wish I could speak seagull.  I know his question was important. 
After a while, he went back to rest in the sand and the sun.

 

 

Long Beach is famous for its kites.  Every year they have a huge week-long kite festival.  We've never been here for it because we were always working.  Now maybe we can come.  If any of you are interested it in, they always hold it the 3rd full week of August. 

During our lunch at the beach, we watched the seagulls, but we also watched the kites.  Seems like there's someone flying kites on this beach no matter when you go, anytime of day, anytime of year.  Maybe even in the rain.  Way down the beach, we could see a pickup.  Folks there were flying a red and yellow delta kite with spinners every few feet all down the line.  Someone in a white sweatshirt flew a white parachute kite. 


The red and yellow delta kite at the top of the string looked like a giant bird

Closer, a fellow sat in a folding lawn chair flying kites.  These kites are huge and looked about 6' wide.  He had a delta and a box kite.  We watched him make the box kite turn somersaults in the sand and then leap up and soar.  His delta kite had rainbow stripes and a 25' tail.  I tried to fly one of those once but I wasn't very good at it.  You fly them with two lines, one in each hand.  It takes a lot of arm, wrist and shoulder strength. 
This guy was really good.  He made that delta kite do everything but sing and dance.  Well, maybe it did dance.  It flew sideways and did somersaults in the sand right in front of us.     


Delta kite did somersaults.  Red and blue box kite in background.

Then the kite flyer made that delta do loop-de-loops way up high, making the tail form circles in the sky.   

As I headed back to the car after taking these pictures, a voice called to me.  A woman sitting in a car a little ways away told me, "I used to fly those."  Here's her story:  Laura lives here on the peninsula.  She said that she has daughters in King country and in Spokane and that they all think she should be in a place where she would have more services available.  "They think this is the end of the world," she said, "but I know it is the best place on earth.  I wouldn't live anywhere else." 

She told me how she used to fly the big kites.  "All those tricks that guy is doing -- I used to do them all."  She had to stop flying kites after she had double knee replacement surgery.  "I quit after my kite dragged me on my butt down the beach for a long way," she said.  "I finally found some driftwood I could brace myself against and make it stop."  Those big kites can really pull! 

I noticed that letting go of the kite wasn't an option.



Laura

Laura can't fly the big kites anymore but she loves to come down to the beach and watch the acrobatics of those who can and remember how it felt to run a kite.  She is 82 years old now but her spirit is young and her smile is catching.  What a woman!  I hope I am doing so well at age 82.


At the edge of the surf, sandpipers race the waves.  They find their food in the receding waves.  As a wave ebbs, the sandpipers race toward the ocean, grabbing bites as they go.  Seconds later a new wave breaks and races toward them.  They run for shore.  They must have to eat prodigious amounts to sustain their little bodies, always moving, and their dietary habits. Talk about eating on the run!   


Sandpipers race the waves

Sandpipers are about the size of wrens.  When they run, their little legs are a blur.  I only saw one of them get caught by a wave.  He bobbed up and down like a fishing cork, fluffed his feathers and took a salt-water bath until he was washed into shore on the next wave. 

People drive up and down the beach, walk and go beach combing, come down for lunch and to feed the seagulls and fly their big kites and the ocean just kept rolling in. The waves are more spread out than in other beaches, but they are just as big.  Looking at them head-on, they look like icing on a wedding cake with about 7 tiers. 



the waves crest and break
fog waits on the horizon
the waves never stop

Today is our last day on the road.  Tomorrow we go home.  Home.  That has a good ring to it.  We're ready. 

We've had the trip of a lifetime and taken over 1800 pictures for me to finish sorting.  But the weather is getting colder every day.  We've had sun the whole way, but we are in western WA and we can't count on that much longer.

It's good to know that no matter where we are, no matter what we are doing, Yellowstone's geysers will still be spouting and the hot pools will still bubble.  The wind will continue to carve the Badlands.  The greatest inland sea, Lake Superior, will still be there making its own weather.  The Black Hills will still be beautiful and their buffalo will still block the roads. 

All the beautiful lakes we've seen and camped beside will still be there protecting their fish.  Rivers will still run and birds will still fly.  All the wonderful people we have met will live in memory.  The ocean will still pound the beach with waves, day by day and year by year.

These places will wait for us, and maybe they'll be there for some of you.  We know we'll go back to see them again sometime.

This sounds like an ending, but it isn't, not quite.  I'll add a few blogs in the next couple of weeks to let you know how we are doing in our new digs.

So tomorrow we'll be home.  And so will you, having traveled with us on this whole fabulous journey. 

No, this is definitely -- not -- the end.  Maybe it's the beginning...

10/2/12 -- Ocean Park, Nearly Home

After our odessey going south on Hwy 101, all the way down the WA coast, we arrived at the absolute southwest corner of the state.  At the mouth of the Columbia River, Cape Disappointment holds the lighthouse on the north.  Fort Stevens holds sway on the south side of the river in OR.

We went to the State Park at Cape Disappointment but they didn't have any openings with electricity.  It's cold enough now that we are using our ceramic cube furnace as the flower pot furnace isn't able to keep up.  If it gets too cold, we'll use both.

They call this area the Long Beach Peninsula.  It is the Longest Beach in the world, 30+ miles long without a stone or bluff to break its progress.  For many years, it has been our playland, individually and together.  It is a resort area, something we usually avoid, but somehow, this one is different.

Several towns march up the peninsula in close succession, towns like Ilwaco, Long Beach, Klipson Beach, Ocean Park, Oysterville.  Each community has more houses now that when we were here last, but there is still some wild forest lands too.

The Long Beach Peninsula

The town of Long Beach was a little crazy, as it often is on weekends.  RV parks there tend to be a little too polished for our taste, so we continued up the peninsula to Ocean Park.

This is an area where we both have history.  There is a United Methodist Church Camp just north of the community of Ocean Park.  Adina went to Church Camp there as a child.  Her family often came to this area for vacations.  Many years later, when I was a pastor in the Methodist Church system, I served as dean for camps here a couple of years.  One was a high school camp.  That's always a delightful challenge!

RV camps line the road all up the peninsula.  We found a place near Ocean Park in an RV park, fairly rustic but with electric hookups -- perfect for our needs.  Our little camp nestles among fir and pines.  We've had sun every day.  When the Sun hits our camp, it is fairly warm and we have enjoyed camping here.



Our Ocean Park campsite

We aren't really in a rain forest but this area does get a lot of rain.  Instead of deep moss clumps or moss than hangs down like hair, on the Long Beach Peninsula trees share their lives with lichen.  Nearly every evergreen and many bushes have lichen on their branches.  


Fir branches loaded with lichen and cones (and likin' it?)

Our RV park is close to the beach, but a wide strip of forest separates us from the dunes.  Three deer have graced our camp each evening and a couple of mornings, a doe, a buck and a fawn.  These deer are smaller than WI deer, a bit above waist-high on Adina.  These two posed for pictures this morning. 


step softly my friend
deer stand watching you watch them
gently sharing space

The Long Beach peninsula beach is lined by dunes, protected from the builder's hammer.  Beach grass holds the sand in place.  However, the sand keeps blowing anyway.  The dunes are much larger and wider than what we remember from our days around here.

People who once bought beach front property now find themselves with neighbors blocking their view, not that the dunes allow much view.  The dunes are well over two stories high. 


a lone gull flies over the top of this dune

Wild grasses keep the dunes from escaping into the twiddling fingers of the wind.  Once, natives gathered the wheat from the grasses to make flour.  The seeds on the grasses are much smaller than on the wheat and oats that today's farmer sows.  Someday, I'd like to try gathering some and grinding the seeds into flour to see what it tastes like.  It would be a time-consuming process, though. 


Wild wheat grass by a path to the beach

Other beaches we have visited have been loaded with driftwood, huge trees, roots and logs.  People have built shelters from them, leaned against them for picnics and used smaller pieces for beach fires.  Most of the driftwood stays on the beaches, protected by the DNR, the State Park, National Park systems and the tribes.  It's illegal to take the driftwood away.   


Endless piles of driftwood at La Push

Long Beach is different.  Although it is regulated by the State Park system, there are no restrictions against taking driftwood.  We remember when Long Beach looked like the other beaches, with driftwood piled high, tossed there by the hand of the wind like a giant's toys.

That has all changed now.  The driftwood is gone, nearly all of it.  We saw a few pieces that measured in inches instead of tons.  An occasional 6' log lies submerged in the sand.  Otherwise, it's gone.  All of it.  Kind of sad, really.  

One of the first nights we were here, we celebrated Adina's birthday, her 65th.  That's a big milestone!  She had wanted to be camping on her birthday, and we did that.  We also took a walk on the beach. 

That evening, we went out to dinner in Ocean Park at a little restaurant just off the main drag, called the Berry Patch.  It had to be a good place because there were tons of cars parked around it. 



The Berry Patch

We had fish and chips, the fish battered with a Japanese preparation that was delicious.  And, yes, they had my aged gourmet malt vinegar.  We topped off the evening by splitting a piece of warm blueberry pie.  When the waitress brought it, she had put a lit birthday candle in it.  I sang "Happy Birthday!" to Adina right there in the restaurant.  A perfect day!

The Long Beach Peninsula has a lot of quaint shops, book sellers and the inevitable tourist traps.  But it also contains real working stores, the kind you need in every neighborhood.  A Thriftway sells the usual groceries.  There are several restaurants and a gas station.  Small churches are available for the 5% of WA's population that attend.   

For just about everything else, there's Jack's Country Store.  The store covers a whole block. 


Jack's Country Store -- a true modern general store

We enjoyed wandering through the aisles, just gawking.  This is a true general store in the old sense of the word.  They had everything, absolutely everything -- groceries, hardware and tools, kitchen goods, hunting and fishing supplies, camping gear, school supplies, kerosene lamps, electric lamps and lampshades, work clothes and rain gear, automotive and RV supplies, knives and clocks and jewelry and more besides.     

The aisles are narrow and packed to the ceiling with goods and supplies.  Department stores, Costco and Walmart just can't compete with an experience like this!  If Jack's doesn't have it, you probably didn't really need it anyway.

A little bookstore called to us and we stopped to see it.  It was closed and the owner was working on the deck.  She welcomed us and opened up the store, letting us browse for a while.  Adina found an Andrew Weil Cookbook she couldn't live without.  Everybody needs another cookbook.

I haven't talked much about the beach.  Each WA beach has some unique quality and the beaches of the Long Beach Peninsula are no exception.  I'll blog again tomorrow and tell you about our beach experiences.

9/30/12 -- Kalaloch Beach and Heading South

I'm several days behind on blogging, but this time I'll bring you mostly up to date.  The short version is that we have driven the whole west coast of WA and are in the southwest corner of the state.  We're about 1 1/2 hr away from Vancouver but we don't have to be home until Oct 4th, so we're continuing to enjoy our journey until then. 

After we left La Push and Forks, we headed south down Hwy 101, the winding, two-lane highway that runs along the west coast of the Pacific Ocean from Puget Sound in WA all the way to the Mexican border in California.

A note about swimming in the ocean here.  Many of the beaches along WA's coast are dangerous for swimming. Riptides are common as the waves come from different angles and collide on the beach. A riptide can drown a person who is only playing in the waves up to their waists.  The riptide pulls them under and sweep them swiftly out to sea. These poor folks are never seen again. We saw warning signs against ocean swimming our whole coastal trip.  We weren't tempted anyway.  For our bones, it's too cold for swimming!

Ruby Beach

Our first stop was Ruby Beach.  I really wanted to go down to the beach, but the bluff was just too much for me.  The trail is steep and contains many steps. 

These steps were put in in the CCC days of The Great Depression.  They made the steps out of logs but the logs have shifted and the shifting sands have done their part.  Now the steps are of different heights and some quite high. 

We looked down on the beach from the parking lot and soaked in the beauty of this spot.  A short hike up the bluff led to the picnic area and the view from there was spectacular. 


Looking down Ruby Beach. 

The rock at the left is common, similar to many on beaches in WA and OR.  These rocks are known as "haystacks."   Birds -- gulls, cormorants, puffins -- love them
The rocks provide safe places for them to nest and raise their young.  Puffins are so cute and such interesting birds, but I didn't get a picture of a puffin this time.  Maybe someday...

The waves come in like, well, like waves. They tumble over each other and look like steps.   In the two-dimensional world of photography, they look like little bits of water lapping on the sand.   Not true.   Each wave is 6' or higher.  When you stand on the sand watching the waves spread out on the sand at your feet, you are looking up at the level of the larger ocean. 


Waves look like stair-steps
race each other to the beach
gulls swoop like surfers

Looking down on the beach gives a different perspective than when you are on the beach, looking up at the waves bearing down on you.  You can see how the waves swirl and break among the rocks that dot the coast. 


Waves swirl among the rocks, humps of lava, lumps of granite

There wasn't any camping at Ruby Beach, so we moved on, driving among incredible forests of cedar, fir, pine, tamarack, hemlock and alder.  The coastal rain forest lies along Hwy 101, sometimes right on the road.  The road winds in and out of the Olympic National Forest, a real wilderness area.  Ruby Beach is the beginning of half a dozen beaches that lie along the highway.  It's a breath-taking drive.

We stopped to check out the campground at Kalaloch Beach, named for the Kakaloch tribe.  We've camped there in the past, but things change and we didn't know what we'd find there.   

Kalaloch Beach

Kalaloch is crammed with trailers this time of year.  The parking spaces are small, many forest sites that I didn't feel comfortable using.  Then we watched motor homes the size of greyhound buses take the same spaces.  Some of them were towing cars.  I don't know how they did it!

There were still a few sites open.  We were fortunate and got a campsite right on the bluff.  We set our camp chairs by the camp road and savored this view until time for our nightly fire.


View from our campsite - note how very wide the beach is. 

We had only planned to spend one night at Kalaloch. We were so delighted with our campsite (very private and sheltered from the wind), our view and the lure of the beach that we stayed an extra night.  It may not have been our first idea, but this whole trip, we've wandered as the mood has taken us.  What a great way to travel!

That first night, we set up camp and I started the fire.  I was relaxing in our campsite when a visitor showed up.  This little fellow sauntered by, bunny-style (hopping), so close I could have reached down and touched his cinnamon-colored fur.  He joined us both evenings about dusk.  After about 45 minutes of munching his favorite dinner grass, he disappeared into the bushes.  We felt blessed by his presence. 


Our nightly dinner guest

The next day we bundled up and hiked down to the beach.  The trail was very close to our campsite, not too long or too steep.  I had to cope with the usual uneven stairs but there were only about a dozen of them. 

In order to minimize erosion from wind and wave on the steps and the trail, the National Park Service built a windbreak of vertical driftwood.  There is a lot of driftwood on this beach -- quite literally tons of it.



First you see the windbreak, then the bushes crawling up the hill above it, then the trees.
That's when you have an idea of the size of the driftwood used on this windbreak. 
Those trees were huge!

We bundled up because it was cold.  The fog was just lifting and the wind was cutting.  We were thankful to find a windbreak-shelter some kind person had built out of driftwood.  We sat with our backs against it, cradled by the soft sand. 


We spent the whole wonderful day on the beach,
basking in the sunshine, taking walks,
talking to seagulls and visiting with each other

Kalaloch is only a ten miles or so past Ruby Beach.  As you go south along WA coast, beaches get wider and waves get wilder, tumbling over each other.  Like many beaches along this coast, rocks peek above the waves.  When the waves break on them, the spray leaps high into the air.


The rock on the far left is submerged by a cresting wave, but the spray is easy to see. 
There are more rocks on the right.  Waves here too are about 6-7' high.

The Kalaloch River spreads its delta here.  One small branch of it came near our shelter.  Seagulls flocked to this running fresh water.  They ducked their heads and drank from it.  They bathed and splashed in it.  Then, when they were watered and clean, they stood on its banks and preened, cleaning and fluffing their feathers.  They weren't interested in begging for food but were into their own agenda.  As a result, they let me get quite close to them.  


The Seagull Spa

In the past, the only seagulls I've ever noticed were either flying or begging for food.  These seagulls were really different.  We know we aren't supposed to feed wildlife and these guys didn't expect anything.  Seagulls are supposed to gather their own food -- shellfish, crabs and the like.  They are really very intelligent birds. 

I remember one seagull that didn't fit this category.  Many years ago, I was on a beach somewhere on Puget Sound, a combination of rocks and sand.  The seagulls were feeding.  A seagull would grab a clam, fly straight up into the air and then drop the clam on a rock to break it open.  The gull would drop like a stone to get the soft inner meat before another seagull could steal it.  I watched them for a while, and then I noticed one seagull who was different. 

He was having a hard time.  He got the part about grabbing the clam and flying straight up into the air.  The part he didn't get was about where to drop it.  While other gulls dropped their clams on the rocks, this guy dropped his on the sand.  Every time.  He'd drop like a stone and then look at his clam.  He'd turn it over with his beak.  Then he'd pick it up, fly straight up in the air ... and drop it on the sand.  He was persistent, I'll give him that, but he took the prize for Most Stupid Seagull of the Year. 

On our day at Kalaloch Beach (back to the present), one young seagull found us interesting for his own reasons.  He came over to look us over, walking around us about 8" from our feet.  We didn't sit very still but he stuck around anyway.


Our seagull friend struts past Adina's shoes

After a while, our seagull buddy leaned into the wind and tucked one foot up.  We didn't know what that meant.


Why is he standing on one leg like that?

After a minute or so of standing on one leg, our seagull buddy lay down in the sand a couple of feet away from me.  He kept an eye out toward the beach for passing dogs, not all of which were on leash, but he also yawned and dozed.  We were doing the same thing.  We spent an hour or so like that.  We talked to him and we think he talked back.  



Sleepy Seagull Buddy

This was the first time we ever noticed a seagull take a siesta.  Since then, we have seen it several times, although none of the other seagulls chose to share our space like our seagull buddy did.  

As the afternoon waned and the wind got colder, we wandered back down to the Seagull Spa to see what was happening.   A couple of dogs had gone through and they had all left -- for about three minutes.  Every now and then a group would fly off and another group would fly in from another direction.  This was definitely their place.  I caught one group as they took off to make way for the next contingent of seagull bathers.   


A few of the seagulls left to make way for other bathers

In this picture of the seagull flock, the waves were catching the sun and it turned them silver.  It is a gift to spend a whole day (and night) hearing the roar of the waves.  They crest and break, crash and thunder, whether anyone is on the beach to listen to them or not.  Hearing them is the best music of all.

 

Fall is the time between the relatively warm summer and the wild storms of winter.  A lot of people were on the beach wearing shorts and clam-diggers and tee shirts.  We wore several layers, a wool sweater and a jacket.  We wore wool hats and gloves.  We've learned how to live with cold in Wisconsin winters.  The people who live here don't think this is cold.  It's a damp, sometimes dank, cold.  We're going to have to adjust to the difference, but we'll still probably bundle up.  It was 43 degrees in the trailer when we woke up this morning.

 

The wind never stops at the beach, or anyway not often.  As a result, the trees grow funny.  Every cell is bent by the wind.  Just as plants grow toward the sun, beach trees grow away from the wind.
 

Trees at the beach, taken from our campsite at Kalaloch Beach Campground
This picture is not tilted!

We have always enjoyed walking among the trees of the beach, just as we enjoy walking through the sand, climbing on driftwood (okay, maybe not that so much anymore), and watching the waves.
 

Willipa Bay and All the Way South

The next day, we moved on, stopping as our whims led us.   That night we camped on Willipa Bay.  It used to be called Shoalwater Bay after the Shoalwater Indian tribe.  I don't know why they changed it. 

 

Willipa  Bay (Shoalwater Bay) protected from the rush of the crashing waves
The fog hadn't finished lifting when I took this picture, late morning

The following day we continued running south along the WA coast.  We stopped in Raymond WA for a mess of the best fish and chips we've had in years.  We found it at a little trailer along the road in the parking lot of a fish company.  They had the most beautiful bench for us to wait on while they cooked our fish and chips -- now that's fresh!    

 

This beautiful carved salmon bench was even comfortable!


The Alaskan cod pieces were rolled in cornmeal and then fast fried, just the way they're supposed to be and wrapped in newsprint.  We got the smallest size order.  It provided us with 4 pieces of fish each and a mess of fries. 


Half of a small order of fish and chips!

Best of all, they had aged gourmet malt vinegar for me to sprinkle on my fish and fries. I love fish and chips spattered with vinegar and then salted. Adina tried it that way and allowed that it was awfully good. I hope all of you can come and have fish and chips, west coast style (but if you want to skip the vinegar, that's okay)!     



We camped that night at an RV park (with electricity available) in Ocean Park on the Long Beach Peninsula.  It's gotten cold enough that the flowerpot furnace is struggling to keep us warm.  We broke out our ceramic cube furnace and now we are toasty.  

 

We've been here a couple of days, just resting and enjoying the area.  I'll tell you all about that in the next blog!