Friends, Mike and Karen Taylor, took us to an RV park on the Washington coast. The park had been a military base. It is still owned by the Navy and is available to active/retired military families and their guests. Karen is in blue to the left. She is sorting the many sand dollars she picked up on the beach.
There is a lot of open area so that when the park filled up, we still felt we had privacy. The houses in the background are a small neighborhood in the teeny town of Pacific Beach. As the name suggests, it as a beach town. It is about 50 miles due west of Tacoma. There are about a half dozen businesses in the town. There are several small communities along Ocean Beach Road that dead ends a few miles north of here in an Indian reservation that abuts the Olympic National Park. The town at the end of the road was SO depressing. It is an Indian town. Dogs were running loose everywhere and many houses had junk piled inside above the top of windows.
This complex houses motel rooms, a small movie theater with 8 recent movies shown free, a banquet room, registration, gift shop, restaurant, and workout room. There is also another building with a bowling alley, sauna, and hot tub. At $20 a night, this is a nice perk for our military.
This is the entrance to registration.
The houses on the right are duplexes that are rentals and outside the military site. At the end of this street and to the left is the town of Pacific Beach. This whole area is very remote. The nearest full service grocery store is 40 minutes away, down a winding, two lane highway. I doubt that the electrical and phone lines will be buried any time soon, even though that would really improve the view of the Pacific. There is a state park with nice RV sites behind the building you see at the end of the road.
Beyond the fence is a cliff, the beach, Pacific Ocean, and a pretty sunset. Access to the beach was a very steep road. Cars are allowed on the beach here. Private homes are nestled along the cliffs and have a lot of property between them. Ted and Mike went deep-sea fishing out of Gray's Harbor, which is over an hour drive. They both caught salmon, but Ted had to throw all of his back since they were wild fish (the adipose fins of hatchery salmon are clipped).
To reach Pacific Beach, you have to go through Aberdeen and Hoquiam, WA. They were built when lumber was king. Note the houses built on tall foundations. There are 6 rivers and Gray's Harbor that opens onto the ocean near by.
This photo of downtown Hoquiam looks very much like the one at www.historylink.org that is labeled 1960s.
In 1990-1991 the northern spotted owl was placed on the threatened species list. This led to the suspension of all logging on old-growth timber lands and much logging on second and third growth areas. Logging continues, but not at the volume of before. Hoquiam and Aberdeen became very depressed areas and have yet to completely recover.
Bridges like this are all over Oregon and Washington. They seem like art to us.
These stacks are for nuclear plants near Hwy 12 between Aberdeen and Olympia. They were never completed.
Look carefully. You will see Mt. St. Helens just a little to the left of the center of this photo. This is the view going south on I-5 near Chehalis. The sign on the left, referred to as the Chehalis Uncle Sam, on is a bit of local color. It was erected by a farmer angry that I-5 was built through the middle of his farm. He died in 2004 and his son now keeps the right wing rants current. In our left leaning state, he seldom runs out of ammunition. On this day it says, "8 trillion $ in debt? Aren't you embarassed yet?" Note that "embarrassed" is spelled wrong.
