What I Did On Summer Vacation

I went back to Ocean Park on the tip of Willapa Bay.  I went back to the little tourist trap called Long Beach, Washington, in the Southwestern most part of the state.  The Long Beach Peninsula is a hangnail of sand that separates Willapa Bay from the headwaters of the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean.  It's a really odd and mostly inhospitable place to boast a tourist trap town.  The wind and rain, a result of northerly locale and Oceanic climate, are almost ever-present. Despite this condition, folks have been coming out here to vacation since they put the Clamshell Railway in, back in 1890.  People chance the weather to walk and drive miles and miles of long sandy beach retreating into a mesmerizing expanse of beachgrass and dunes.  My family was one of those families who used to regularly vacation there.  My dad took us because his dad took us.  You either went fishing in the rain or played cards and board-games in a trailer or fishing cabin.  This went on for years.  It doesn't go on as much any more.  

Well, I went back because I needed to go out there.  I felt like I needed to go back and wander around in the dunes, eat steamer clams and drink warm cans of sand grit beer.  My dad and mum were going and invited Dana and I.  As usual, I scheduled this in such a way as to keep Dana off the roster. So, I drove alone along the mostly two lane, winding stretch of highway through rump mountains and towering Douglas Fir down to the ocean.  The towering forests don't go on as much any more either, though.  The Weyerhaeuser Timber Company owns most of this part of the state. The clearcuts along the highway have became more frequent over the years.  Driving through one is like driving through Tunguska Explosion or the aftermath of a hurricane.  They put signs up along the highway that basically say "Hey, we know this looks bad but we're planting them back."  I don't really know why they do that.  

I went back because I've been there a lot over the years but not so much anymore.  There are some other places I've been to and then gone back.  Ocean Park is where I've gone back the most.