Spontaneous Road Trip to WA Coast part 1 (No Dogs Allowed)

 The summer is winding down. Family vacation essays are being written in the first days of school and the weather is cooling down, this is when our family of 2 humans and 4 furkids like to get out and about. Last week on a whim we headed out on a daytrip to Grayland WA and surrounding area as our destination. 

We hadn't been out to the WA coast in quite a few years, things didn't look like they had changed much, we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

When we got into Westport area we passed a State Park. We all needed a walk in the worst way after being in the car so long and Dave did a U-turn so we could check out Bottle Beach State Park. Liza was very VERY excited and was squealing and whining, she was so ready to get out and go for more than a potty stop, she wanted to check things out.

Here is what we found after we got everybody leashed up and out of the car and walked over to the beginning of the trail:

Bummer! The dogs promised not to disturb anything but mom and dad said the rules had to be followed. Jenny laughed and said with her bad eye-sight, old age, and absolutely no prey drive whatsoever she should be granted a special exception to this rule. But alas we had to turn back to the car.

We got the dogs in the car and had planned on heading out so we could find a place they could get their rattie wiggles out but Dave suggested we take a quick walk to check out the place since we might not get back out thus way for another few years. We both wished the dogs could have gone too but once we realized this was a bird estuary and the migrating and nesting shorebirds all needed to be protected we were 100% in agreement with the rules.

Wow a million migrating birds??? I would love to be here in the spring!

Thank you Ruby, you were definitely a woman ahead of your time.

Yup I get it.

Hmmmm not what I was expecting. Somehow I am not thinking our dogs will ever be exploring this area as Tim would not like to hear guns being fired, maybe we could get them all service dog garb and pass them off that way??? ;)

Nice boardwalk and beautiful open spaces. Imagine the sea air and this was a beautiful place.

I can just imagine all the water birds coming here in the spring, I bet it is full of life and bird sounds.

One of the viewing blinds ahead, from a distance it didn't look like much.

Clever little fence!

Looking out toward Gray's Harbor

Upon closer inspection we realized the slats were made by sawing off the bark and thin section of logs, very cool.

Dave liked how they notched the top of the log to fit the support beam down onto.

This is the beach just on the other side of the blind. It was low tide.

This explains all the aspect of the bird that birders look for when identifying what type of bird it is.

Lucky us! We did see a lone shore bird. I do not know my shorebirds but asked a Facebook group I belong to if they could ID this little cutie. The consensus is Spotted Sandpiper

 There was a lot more we could have explored and we could have just sat on one of the benches and taken it all in for a long time, but we had 4 very ansty dogs waiting in the car so we made it a quick jaunt and back to the car we went. Stay tuned for the second part of our adventure!