Spontaneous Road Trip to WA Coast part 2 (Beach Time For Dogs and Mishap)

Once we got on the road again after our first stop at Bottle Beach our goal was to find a place where 4 ansty terriers could run/walk off their long journey energy. We found Twin Harbor State Park and when we rolled up we found there was no one in site! We parked the car in the empty parking lot and headed out to the beach.

In case you missed it here is the first installment of this post. Spontaneous Road Trip to WA Coast part 1 (No Dogs Allowed) 

 

With no one around the dogs could go off leash, always their favorite way to approach things...

ahhhh we have the whole place to our selves!

The dogs waste no time with their sniffathon.

Tim humoring mom with a pose before he was off and running to see what the girls are finding.

Hmmm what is that? A vulture. He was eating something so we made sure to keep everyone heading in the opposite direction, lol.

He takes flight and I am able to get a photo of how graceful he is.

Warning the videos have a lot of wind noise.

I didn't think I got him in the frame but was pleasantly surprised I captured a short video of this beautiful flight.

The driftwood installation is courtesy of Mother Nature.

Liza was having a BLAST! Look at her run like the wind. After a few hours confined to the car she was ready to let loose. Tim gets a bit concerned about the beach, so dad carries and comforts him for a bit.

Tim decided to try some running but then heads back to dad for encouragement.

Someone built a a fun little fort and the dogs had to check it out.

Birdie was the first to go inside.

Tim was a little skeptical but...

...curiosity got the better of him and so he joined Birdie in checking it out.

Birdie says "Tim it's ok, just puff your chest out and look brave like me!"

I love this pic of Birdie, it makes me giggle.

There was this one small patch of tiny flat rocks, the rest of the beach was sand. I wonder why?

We head back toward the car and see this piece of driftwood. It looks like a whale to me.

As we approach our car we see something bad has happened while we were having fun. Someone busted our window and we assume to get to whatever we had in the bags in the back. But all we had in the bags was apples and dog food. I check in front and nothing was stolen. But the broken window was NOT good. Thankfully a very nice park ranger stopped in and took a report and then went back to his office to get supplies to fix us up so we could head home. It was a real bummer but it was hard to complain too long with the kindness of the ranger helping us on our way.

He and Dave did a great job of patching us up and we were on our way. Time to head home and we had a great trip in spite of this mishap.

I wanted to end this post on a good note, so I saved this cute photo of little Jenny Boo. Traveling with her is getting harder and harder but she did pretty well all in all. She still doesn't want to miss anything and she enjoyed her beach walk with us and her fur-siblings.

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!

We Check Out Buck Creek Campground Part 2

We spent another few hours exploring before we got to Buck Creek Campground.

We had bagel and coffee at Mount Loop Coffee and Books in Darrington. When I first walked in I was greeted by one of the locals who introduced me to himself then the owner and then continued to talk my ear off about the town and history and points of interest. I could tell the owner of the store was a little worried I would head back out the door, but I assured him with a wink that I was fine and once we ordered our lunch we got to sit and enjoy the ambiance in peace. lol. It was a friendly and homey little place and with no real agenda or time frame it was nice to just hang out with a few locals and people watch.

Once on our way again we took a old logging/fire road and drove way back into the woods. At one turn around we got out with the dogs and they had a blast checking out all the smells of the warm fir needles and fern fronds, there must have been a lot of critter smells and none went to waste with our kids taking them all in.

We decided we better get to the campground as we were going to have a long way back home. What a charming, quiet, out of the way place. We paid our $5 day fee and as we drove through were greeted by the camp host and his wife. A gentle smile on both of their faces. As our friends promised, this is a magical place.

We took a walk around the unoccupied campsites with the dogs, all on leash of course, and these photos are all scenes that can be seen from these campsites. Here is the facility details overview: Situated on the banks of Buck Creek in Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, Buck Creek campground offers stunning scenery...

Scattered beneath a towering canopy of old-growth forest, the sites in this campground are secluded and within walking distance to the waterfront, making it an ideal setting for visitors wanting to camp in a private, rustic setting.

A funny story: We wondered if there could be a way that we could actually camp here sometime with our pack. We decided we aren't there yet. 4 dogs would be way too many for one, and as we walked around the campground, all dogs on leashes, we saw some campers in the distance and of course Tim had go into full alert barking mode which let Liza know she needed to bark too, Sorry!!!!!! Also on a side note, the mosquitoes were fierce! But what a beautiful and serene place this is, minus Tim/Liza and maybe with some bug deterrent. <grin>

We had passed a small sign that said "Suiattle Indian Cemetery" on our way in to the campground so on our way home we wanted to visit this humble cemetery.

This was a very small cemetery with some very old burials. Some decedents who were 105 years old dating back to birth in the early to mid 1800's. There were a lot of children and babies too. Really gave us pause to think of what this whole state looked like and what life was like for them and what knowledge of flora and fauna, and the land, has been lost with these ancient ones.

Sweet carving on top of the sign post.