Lovely, Lovely Water

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent several days in and around Vancouver, Wa. One day, the rest of the family was busy, so my Aunt and I decided to go to the coast for the day. Notice I said "coast" not"beach". Beach conjures up images of southern California style beaches and the beaches of northern Oregon and Washington are not the same. They tend to be a little wilder and less civilised than in So. Cal.

We had been to the coast in Oregon,in Astoria and Seaside, so we decided to tale I 5 up to Longview, Wa and get off on highway 4 and make our way to the coast. Now we had just come from drought plagued Utah, so even the views on the interstate were showing us bounteous amounts of water. In Utah, we'd gladly take even a quarter of the water this area has.

Highway 4 is a small 2 lane koad, very picturesque, that stays fairly close to the Columbia River. We did run into about 3 areas of road work. I guess summer's the same everywhere on that count. We must have missed a sign because soon we were away from the river, but we kept going as the signs still proclaimed Long Beach ahead and that was our destination.

Eventually, we saw more water, then a really lot of water! There were islands and somehow,it didn't quite look like the Columbia River. We pulled over to take some pictures and stretch our legs.I mentioned to my Aunt that I bet the water was salty. Later, after checking a map, we realised we had gone north and were at the bottom of a huge bay that actually is behind Long Beach.

We did make it to Long Beach, a kitzy little tourist town with lots of places to buy seashells, sea food and kites.(They have a kite festival there.) The beach is sand, quite hard packed, not ankle deep like SoCal beaches. My Aunt thought the ocean was dirty as the waves were rolling up lots of sand and seaweed. To me, it was beautiful! I love the sound of the waves and the calls of the sea birds. I really hated to leave.

We crossedthe bridge over to Astoria. It's quite a climb. I'd had to have to use it on an icy day. They have to have it high for the big ships that go up the river. We took highway 30 and went over the Longview bridge to go back to Vancouver.

I wonder if the people up there know how blessed with water they are. There were ferns next to the road growing thigh high and Queen Ann's Lace as high as my waist, plus larkspur and flowers I didn't have a name for. It was a wonderful trip that I was sorry yo see end!