Leaving the Coast

Yes, we will be leaving the coast of Washington in the morning.  Today we wanted to take one more look at the great Pacific Ocean.

We headed up the road to Cape Disappointment. We stopped at the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center.

The Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean…

Cape Disappointment Lighthouse…

  

We toured the center and watched the movie, which brought us through the expedition, starting in St Louis in 1804…

 

Putting these earphones on, you can hear the up to date info on the ships travelling the Columbia River into the Pacific and  back. Today there will be seven arriving..The first coming from Brazil,  two from Korea, and a few from Canada. There will be two leaving.. So much industry travelling though these waters!

We then headed down to the port of Ilwaco for some lunch…

After lunch it was one more stroll at Long Beach…

 

And that ends our coastal tour.. We have loved every minute of it, but there is so much more of this beautiful country to see.. 

Tomorrow we head 80 miles inland towards Portland for a four night stay at a state park..

Visiting Mt St Helens

We had planned on doing this trip to see Mt St Helen’s, either Monday or Tuesday, but after checking the weather it looked like Sunday was the best day for weather. We had 120 mile drive and certainly didn’t want to get up there, and not be able to see it… We made the right decision..it was a perfect day, with very few clouds..

Look at all the wood at this logging plant….

A first glimpse, many miles away…

And we stopped at all the visitors centers all the way up…

After 31 years, still signs of the devastation..

      

New growth…

 

Waterfalls..

Roadside snow…

Kids having fun…

Picnics anywhere….

The intense movie about the eruption…

And then the curtains open to this….

Outside on the deck…

 

We loved it, and feel so very fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience this…

On the way down, it was time for a late lunch….

Overlooking  this river…

We ended our perfect day, sharing this homemade mountainberry cobbler….

Onto Washington

Well, we get to put another state on our map. We won’t be here long but at least we made it…

We are officially in the state of Wa.. We weren’t too sure about coming to this TT park. We had driven through it last week and didn’t like the feeling. We decided to head here anyway and if we didn’t like it, then head back to Seaside.  But now that we are here, it’s not all that bad. We have satellite and sewer, which we didn’t have last week.  Everyone knows, that makes Kevin happy!  The park itself is old.Each site has an electrical box for two sites, one with 30amp and one with 50. If you luck out and get there first, then you get the 50amp. We lucked out and got the 50amp site… The sewer and water are towards the back.   The grass was knee high when we arrived but they have since done a quick cut job. 

The best part is the beach is only a half mile walk…

 

The beach itself was pretty cluttered with debris..

 

But the ocean, as always is just so beautiful.. I never tire of it!

   

The little towns surrounding here are quite neat..

We found the Cottage Bakery, where the big attraction is the Devil Dog..It is a cross between an eclair and cream filled donut.  Yum!

We took in the Saturday Market, which was the next town over,  down on the harbor and very nice..

       

Hey Donna, look what we found. They were selling these for $26!  These are cheese platters made out of wine bottles. Our friend Donna has been collecting wine bottles from all of us, with hopes of some day making them. We have all had to drink alot of wine to help the cause!!

The only thing I bought, was a mint plant. I was reading a recipe one day that called for fresh mint. Now I don’t remember what the recipe was for, lol….Anyone with any recipes that calls for mint? I think this one is orange mint.

When we left the market we stopped at this nice park..

 

 

There were clouds in the sky, but also lots of sun today. That makes 3 days in a row!! I think it’s a record for the few months we have been in this area.. I hope it keep up..