We have finally been here for over two full weeks, and it feels as if we have been here over a month. In all our days, we have had only two full day of sunshine and a couple where the sun came out late in the afternoon. While Portland sits in 90+ degrees, we are under a cover of clouds. For most of the time, the weather is warm and gray so I and others are in shorts and most of the campers refuse to be denied their beach time with kids and dogs in the water.
There is a lot of military as well as Lewis and Clark history here. Within about a 30 mile stretch, are three military forts. Fort Canby, which is now Cape Disappointment State Park, Fort Columbia about six miles south of Cape D, and then Fort Stevens across the river in Astoria.
The east side of the Long Beach peninsula is Willapa Bay, which is the home to some of the best oysters in the USA. We visited Oysterville the other day, a small little town with really no town, just a historic neighborhood and the Oysterville Oyster company. While there, I tasted the little Komota oysters. Oh my, they are sweet! We found it takes the Komota oysters 4 years to reach full growth, therefore the reason for their expensive costs. We bought some of the pacific oysters and had them for dinner.
Being a camp host is something we are considering not doing again. At 8am one morning, a camper was at our door with an older lady and her dog. The older lady had been walking in circles and the camper asked if she was lost. We took her in and called the rangers and found out she had traveled from Colorado to an annual reunion of friends and families. She got up early to walk the dog, leaving her campsite without making note her site number, knowing the name of the person who made their reservation and without a cell phone. The only thing she knew for certain was she came in a gray minivan. Rangers circled the 180 sites asking those sites with gray minivans if they were missing anyone. No one was, but I think after the ranger left, they counted noses and found grandma was not there. She was eventually reunited with her family and we have not seen her walking her dog since.
Another event was a young boy coming to the door saying his younger ‘aunt’ about 8 years old reported seeing a man with a gun who had killed a dog. Once again we called the rangers and they were here in a heartbeat. After talking to the kids, it became apparent it was a case of vivid imagination. Painting benches in the shower stalls as we did in Oregon, has a much better appeal right now.
Some observations from our litter picking duties: 1) Trident seems to be the gum of choice for campers, 2)the thing most often found are those little cellophane covers for the straws on little juice boxes. 3) People think throwing everything in the fire pit (including plastic, food, and aluminum foil) will just burn. Most sites are left in very reasonable conditions. We find a bit of paper here and there, maybe a plastic bag. But there are those sites where we believe the poor relatives of the Clampets stayed. There is food thrown into the bushes, they have let their dogs do their business near by and not cleaned it up, and anything they opened they’ve left on the ground.
We miss the squirrels and chipmunks but what is here are bunnies and deer. We have seen both and the deer are by no means afraid of humans. The park sponsors a summer concert series and as we watched one, two deer came out of the woods, ran behind and around the stage and back into the woods. We have hung our hummingbird feeder again and it took about a week before they found it. Alas, they are not as abundant as they were in Oregon either. We wonder if it is because of the cooler weather.
We are off to see the sand sculptures contest in Long Beach today, and then tomorrow we will join in the Clamshell Train fesitival here in Ilwaco. Some time ago, there was a railroad that ran on the beach between Ilwaco and Long Beach during low tides only. So we are off to see what it was all about.