Wednesday - Today was our day to "do" Long Beach Peninsula. We had an agenda of sorts, and decided to save Cape Disappointment Lighthouse until the afternoon, hoping the sea mist would have cleared and we would have good views. Joe figured we might do some beach driving, so he got prepared.
We drove into Ilwaco, we hadn't seen the harbor yesterday when we drove through, so that was our first stop. "The Port of Ilwaco accommodates up to 800 sport and commercial fishing vessels and is the center of the Peninsula's fishing industry." There were lots of boats in dock, and a few heading out to the river when we were there.
We took Hwy 101 across the Peninsula this time, and we found the cranberry bogs here. Then we found the Cranberry Museum, and even though we had been to one of these already, we decided to go through this one as well. It is also a Research Foundation, and the bogs here were each identified with names of the types of cranberries being tested. In the Gift Shop, Joe bought a long-sleeve t-shirt (that he immediately wore) and some dried cranberries, and I bought a bottle of cranberry vinaigrette that looked good.
They had walking paths through the bogs so we got to get up close this time. The cranberries produced here all go for juice and sauces. Since they are not first-quality berries (because they are grown in bogs), they harvest them differently, but the fields around here are still Ocean Spray growers.
We continued our drive, and of course found the beach.
Buick on the beach again. (Thank goodness, we didn't have to use that shovel!)
Next up was the Kite Museum, right in the town of Long Beach. It wasn't as great as we had hoped, but we did check it out.
There were two horse stables right along here and I took pictures of them from the window of the Kite Museum. They were getting to go on a trail ride, and we did see them, in the mist, a little later on the beach.
One interesting exhibit was a kite used in WWII.
We drove back down to the beach and found a parking place this time. Washington State's International Kite Festival is underway right here, so we got to see these kites in the air.
We went on the main street and found some lunch, then went in a couple shops. There was one corner with statues so I took that picture.
By now, it's 4:00 so we headed out to Cape Disappointment. This the only place in the lighthouse system where there are 2 lighthouses within 2 miles of each other. We hiked to North Head Lighthouse first, even though we knew it was under renovation. That was 1/2 mile each way.
Cape Disappointment was another 1/2 mile hike each way, but it was a pretty difficult trail. The Coast Guard station was along this trail, but we weren't allowed to go down to it.
Cape Disappointment is a working lighthouse, and the keeper was inside working, so we only got to walk around the outside and enjoy the view.
Jettys have been built to help guide ships now, but this area is known as the "Graveyard of the Pacific" because more than 2,000 ships and 700 lives have been lost here since the late-1700s. Through our binoculars, we could see the guiding buoys and jettys, but we didn't see any whales from here. From here, we could also see the Lewis and Clark Interpretative Center, which is also on this trail.
We made our way back down the trail and took the turn to the Lewis and Clark Center, but we had to rest a bit. We got to the Center just as it closed at 5:00, so we didn't even get inside.
We did have nice views, and we saw lots of black birds, that I think were cormorants, and we saw a couple sea lions. And we could see the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse in the distance.
Joe could see the jettys and the Cape Disappointment campground from here, so that was next on our agenda. We walked way out of the jetty, watched some fishermen for a bit, saw another sea lion, and watched the lights on the lighthouse and the fishing boats coming in.
Of course we had to walk way, way down the jetty, past the big rocks. We saw one big ship pass, but we didn't get to see it actually come out of the mouth of the river. We must have been driving down to the jetty when it came through. We saw several fishing boats coming back in to the harbor, and one bigger ship out at sea but it didn't seem to get any closer.
I found a rock I liked, but Joe didn't seem inclined to carry it for me. But I found a chip with some of the same color on the way back to the car, so I still got me a rock! (Along with a few other rocks and a couple of pieces of driftwood from the Kite beach)
The sea mist was rolling in (and the temperature was dropping), but it made a pretty sunset -- well, it wasn't even a sunset, it was a white streak in the the sky separating sky from sea on the horizon
And here's the lighthouse, from the jetty.
We left there, drove around the campground here, found the boat ramp, then finally headed back into town for some dinner. I had great plans to cook tonight, but after the 13,753 steps I logged today, I just wasn't too eager to do that. We are both pretty tired and achy, so it's time to rest.
Didn't see any deer today, even though we were in areas where they should have been (signs said so). We saw 3 yesterday, one while driving through town on our way to the campground, and 2 more on our evening drive on the Peninsula. But none today. There are supposed to be bears here too, but they haven't shown themselves either.
Tomorrow we plan to cross the bridge and "do" Astoria. If we can get out of bed.
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