Every year on the weekend of Thomas and Spenser's birthday they hold the Washington State International Kite Festival out in Long Beach and this year we decided to make the drive. I had looked into spending a couple of nights there, but by the time I had made any real decisions the place that I had been looking at had been reserved.
As we left home it was shaping up to be a beautiful day. The temperature in the car was already reading 84 degrees and so I didn't think about taking jackets with us. After our trip to Port Townsend I know that I should have learned my lesson because as we pulled into Long Beach I could see how windy it was. The Washington/Oregon Coast might share the same coastline as California, but they are definitely worlds apart! We all just had to suck it up and we made the trek down to the beach to eat lunch.
As we got onto the beach and pulled out the blanket I wondered how we were going to manage to eat anything that wasn't full of sand.
While I trekked out to the bathroom, Spenser found this garden oasis up in the dunes. It was definitely a world away from the windy beach and at times the sand was even too hot to stand on and when we got too warm we just had to stand up and feel the breeze.
After lunch the kids decided to brave the ocean. The boys never took their shirts off, but had fun splashing in the very cold waves.
It was fun to watch people flying their kites. There were
some pretty cool choreographed routines.
Spense was more worried about whether or not a rouge
wave would hit them than paying attention to the camera
Spense braving the water
Olivia loved the waves. She is quite the water girl.
Yes, she got sand EVERYWHERE!
When we had all had enough of the cold and wind we changed and headed out to Cape Disappointment State Park, which I had discovered while researching the area. It was a beautiful area. We forced the kids into getting out and making the walk down to the lighthouse since we had come so far and it was definitely starting to get a little chilly.
The area was named in 1788 when English Captain John Meares missed the passage over the river bar, and so called the nearby headland Cape Disappointment for not having found the river. In 1792 the river bar was successfully crossed by American Captain Robert Gray who named the river "Columbia" after his ship. The Lewis and Clark Expedition then arrived around 10 years later.
Making our chilly walk
The North Head Lighthouse
North Head is the windiest lighthouse area on the west coast, and the second windiest in the nation. We definitely discovered that that was true! The kids were just excited to find out that they weren't running any tours of the lighthouse because the staircase had become dangerous.
We all ran back to the car (well not me so much) and drove across the park to the other lighthouse and the bunkers. None of the kids wanted to get out, which I couldn't totally blame them for, so we sent Spense on a little hike with the camera.
He found this beautiful coastline
He was also able to see Cape Disappointment Lighthouse
The Cape Disappointment lighthouse was built in 1856 to warn of the dangerous river bar known as "the graveyard of the Pacific." It is the oldest functioning lighthouse on the West Coast.
In 1862, during the American Civil War, Cape Disappointment was armed with cannons to protect the mouth of the Columbia River from attacks by Confederates or foreign fleets.
The installation was later expanded to become Fort Canby in 1875. The US Army constructed Fort Canby along with Fort Columia and Fort Stevens, to defend the entrance of the Columbia River from enemy warships. The US Army manned the fort from the mid 19th Century through the end of World War II. Spenser reported that they were in much better shape than the ones we like to visit in Port Townsend.
After our short history tour we picked up something to eat and made the drive home. It was a fun day and will definitely be worth an overnight trip in the future. I will just be sure to pack some warmer clothes now we know just how windy it can get.
2 comments:
Thanks Nad for letting me see your beautiful bump!! Wish we lived closer! Beautiful pictures, you are lucky living near the coast xxx
Isn't it amazing how cold it is on the beach when it's so warm where we are? We only made it to the beach once this year, and we checked the coast weather first before we left. We have been caught in the cold too many times to count! We will have to check out that lighthouse. I think lighthouses are so cool!
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