From Longview to Long Beach--We're Back on the Coast!

We left our Walmart parking spot in Longview, Washington, Sunday morning after church, and headed down the road to our next destination. As we left town, we saw that the river harbor is a storage facility for piles of logs as far as we can see.

Even though we just got to Washington, the GPS is taking us back over the bridge to Oregon for most of the drive today. Crossing that bridge, we see a ship being loaded to take some of that wood far away.

After an hour's drive west in Oregon, we arrive in Astoria to reconnect to Highway 101. We're about to drive over the famous Astoria bridge.

This bridge stretches four miles over the grand Columbia River.

Again, we see that the state of Washington has spared no expense in signage to welcome us back!

Our new destination is Long Beach, Washington, and we pulled into town in the middle of the afternoon. We had made reservations at Sand Castle RV campground several weeks ago. Then the strangest series of events took place as we found that our campground didn't have record of our reservations. It took some detective work to figure out that Denisa had written down a different campground's phone number by mistake. So while she thought she was making reservations with Sand Castle, she was actually talking on the phone with a different campground. That's the first time that has happened since we went full-time.

After a warm afternoon, the cold winds were blowing on the beach by the time we finally got set up. This is a wide sandy beach. After we walked over the dunes to the beach, it's another quarter mile of flat sand before we got to the ocean. We share this wide strip of beach with cars, because in Washington this stretch of sand is recognized as an official road.

We also share the beach with the normal shore birds. But as we walk back through the sand dunes, we notice an unusual bird perched on a tall pole.

He must be used to beach-goers, because he lets us get quite close before taking off. We didn't have the good camera with us, so this is the best image we could get. But that was definitely a young bald eagle perched at the beach. We would find out later that the Long Beach peninsula has the highest concentration of bald eagles in the lower 48 states, and we would see many more during our stay.

The Long Beach Peninsula runs north-south for 28 miles along the Washington coast. The peninsula is about a mile and a half wide. So wherever we went on the peninsula, we were close to the Pacific on the west and Willapa Bay on the east. Water is an important part of the culture and livelihood of this peninsula. That is reflected in the town names we will drive through--Oysterville, Seaview, Ocean Park, Surfside, and Long Beach.

We will be staying in Long Beach for four days, and the arch on Main proclaims this 28-mile stretch is the longest beach in the world. Long Beach does have a long beach, but is it really the longest? When we did some research, we found that there are beaches longer in Bangladesh, Brazil, Mexico, New Zealand, Texas and Virginia. But I guess a sign that proclaims that it is the 7th longest beach doesn't have the same ring to it?

We drove to the furthest point north on Long Beach peninsula, and found we need a Washington Discovery Pass to park at most state parks. We bought a pass since we plan to travel in this state for around a month. We did a hike that took us along the bay side of the peninsula.

We had intended to keep walking the width of the peninsula on a trail to get to the ocean side. But we had been warned about the soggy trails at this state park. When the signage at the beginning of the hike warns you "It's not really hiking (it's more like wading) from October to May" they are not kidding--especially during a very wet spring.

It even started sprinkling while we were hiking. Between the rain drops and the mosquitoes, we didn't linger long at the state park. We found out that this time of year brings the biggest mosquitoes, and we saw some big swarms in the marshy areas. So we drove to a different state park (and got to use our Discover Pass again) to take a cool-weather walk on the ocean beach with our jackets.

Much of the interior of this 28-mile peninsula is planted into cranberry bogs. Our campground owner recommended visiting the Cranberry Museum in town. Denisa knew she was going to like it here just from all the flowers planted outside.

There is a self-guided tour through the building that explains how the cranberry bogs are made, and planted, and cared for. We learned much about the cranberry way of life. We especially enjoyed learning about the many ways to harvest the ripe berries. Currently, 95% of the fields are harvested via the flooding method. After flooding the fields, a machine loosens the berries from the plants so they float to the top of the water to be corralled into containers. But earlier methods are exhibited in the museum. They range from the machine on the left that the farmer walks behind, to the cranberry vacuum behind Mark that was the latest rave in the 1940's. In the middle of the display are the handheld devices that coax the berries off the plants using wooden fingers mounted in a box.

The museum is adjacent to the Washington State University Research Farm, and visitors are encouraged to walk among the cranberry bogs to get a close-up view.

There are flags among the bogs, indicating test plots of different varieties or methods being researched. The plants are still in their red-tinged dormant stage. They will bloom and set berries in the next few months for the harvest in the fall.

On the way back to the car, Denisa couldn't help but take some pictures of the flowers lining the driveway. The pink azaleas made a bright background for the dainty purple flowers.

We have been blessed to follow the beautiful rhododendron and azalea bloom through our travels towards the north, but we had never seen this yellow wisteria-like tree blooming.

There is another strange attraction in Long Beach--Marsh's Free Museum. It's actually a touristy store, that masquerades as a museum with its strange collection of taxidermed animals and antique coin-operated machines. Besides the two-headed calf and the machine that will measure your love life by your hand strength, there is the store's most famous resident. Now that we are residents of Long Beach, we have to include a picture of Jake the Alligator Man from Marsh's Free Museum.

We are learning much and seeing much on Long Beach peninsula. We think we're going to like it here (as long as we don't have nightmares about Jake)!