Weekend Road Trips Around the NW: August 2009

A coffee can on the table at the burger joint we ate at in Pacific Beach, the Falcon's Nest. Great burgers!

We almost always take the same route from our home in Eatonville to the coast of Washington. Mostly because last time Mommer tried to make me go a different way we were lost in Crapavine (okay, it's really called Napavine) and surrounding small towns for HOURS! Frankly, I'm lazy and my mom's a bad navigator so I never pick a different route beforehand and I've learned not to let her pick an alternate route when we're already on the road.
Still, the way we usually go through Yelm, Rainier, Tenino, Grand Mound, Oakville, Elma, and then West on 12 is usually pretty and sometimes very interesting. It was more than interesting on the way home this trip. We were trying to make it back quickly from Pacific Beach area since Angelfish Annie got sick while we were gone. Still, we had one thing we were determined to stop and photograph: A car pulled up onto a lawnmower. Yes, on to the lawnmower, as if to use it as a jack while they gave the car a tune up or something. As we were scanning the side of the road, looking for the house where we'd seen this lovely "lawn art" on our way to the seaside, Mom screeched in horror and turned to me with fright written on her face. It seems I missed it but we'd just driven by an old lady hanging her white, wrinkly butt out like a flag of surrender to life in someone's driveway. She was in front of a group of cars (toward the road) squatting and apparently going to the bathroom. Mommer, camera in her hand and horror on her face, made eye contact and the lady threw up a hand to shield herself. I'm thinking she must've only gotten scared by the camera because she hadn't seemed reluctant to squat facing a road full of cars streaming on by. In fact, there were about 20 places in the driveway where she would've been concealed at least mostly so my personal theory is that she was into a little exhibitionism...until a camera rolled by.
In Mommer's horror she missed a photo of our friendly neighborhood peeing perv, but we did get one of the car/lawnmower situation.

Yep. Awesomeness reigns all over Rainier, WA. Or at least it did the week of August 10. :D

Enough about the drive on the way over (and back). We got to spend two nights and (two and a half days) at Pacific Beach, Washington. We stayed at Sandpiper Resort which was a little moldy and mildewy but it made up for it. There are no phones here, no tvs, and actually not much of anything. There isn't any place to get food unless you head into Pacific Beach or Ocean Shores, so it's good there's a full kitchen in every room. What makes up for the, apparently recent, lack of care for the facility is the location. You've heard that old cliche "Location, location, location", well, this place proves the idea is worth listening to. We've never stayed anywhere so close to the beach. Thirty to fifty steps from your hotel room and you're on the beach, toes sinking into silver and gold flecked sand.

This is the view from the door of our hotel room. We often just left our shoes in the room, carried Angelfish Annie piggyback style, and made it quickly across the gravel to the sand. If you don't have hick-tough feet like Mommer and I, though, you will probably want to just leave your shoes at the trailhead like so many others were doing.
It seems to be a real family oriented resort, and does allow pets. At the sidewalk up to each building or cottage there is a little area for washing sand off your feet, and just next to our building was a covered area for washing clams and such one may have dug.
If you're looking for luxury you'd better skip up the road to what one of the locals called "SeaCrook". It's a pre-made town actually named SeaBrook that will be perfect for any overly polished, skittish, or snobby city dwellers who don't know how to handle the rust and mildew that almost all of these older ocean side "resorts" have. SeaBrook rents houses out and may have a hotel but to tell the truth we simply drove through once in abject fascination wondering if the people on the street had been paid to make the place look populated, since it was so very movie set like it seemed they must've been. I'm not putting up a link for yuppies who expect the Washington Coast to look like Pleasantville or Stepford. You yups can look up Seabrook your damn selves. :D
Anyhow, as I've mentioned the Resort seemed a bit bedraggled. She's an old lady of the sea, and she hasn't been redressed since (I'm guessing) about 1968. The rooms are decidedly 70s in decor and reminded me of vacations we took in the early 1980s so I had an affinity for it. The heated towel bar showed some rust, the light fixture in the bathrooom had obviously been replaced with a much smaller one without any repair to the wall behind it, and the kitchen was only 1/4 as stocked as the "supply list" taped to the cupboard would have one think. And yet, it was a worthwhile vacation where I think we all got to have long relaxing days of doing a whole lot of nothing, despite the fact that Angelfish Annie didn't sleep the first night and got sick the last day.
We ended up bringing along a portable dvd player which I'd recommend for anyone with young children who are used to the occasional tv show to keep them from getting too bored. Angelfish Annie went to sleep watching Sesame street videos.
There are rockers on each porch/balcony and we rocked with Angelfish Annie wrapped in blankets and even sang some songs (though we quieted in embarrassment when neighbors came down the stairs).
We sat on the beach playing Scrabble on my DS while April used the strainer and a spoon from the hotel room to play in the sand. Later she rocked while I let the wind blow bubbles (made with dawn and water in a casserole dish) through a potato masher.
The worst thing about the rooms was how damp they were. Waking up feels like waking on a camping trip since the blankets are covered in dew even if the doors and windows are closed.
All in all, despite the creakiness of the buildings and the damp, we had a wonderful time and got lots of good photos. I have to say, next time we go back to this area we've decided to rent a house or go to the Ocean Crest in Moclips which is better maintained and has a pool.
We went to the house 0' crap... oh, I mean museum... in Moclips that actually turned out to be pretty cool (as so many of these little home-town museums do).
There's not too many places to eat (except taverns) so we ate mostly at the Pacific Beach Resort restaurant, The Windjammer. It was a limited menu and spice-less food but still good, easily affordable, and kid friendly. This is a Naval resort but the restaurant and gift shop are open to public. The gift shop was our favorite and we went to all of them in town and at our resort.
Outside of Pacific Beach is Moclips which houses not only the house o' crap and the Ocean Crest, but a creepy old abandoned school that was supposedly going to become a huge RV park. Since the completion date is passed, and the construction office is also seemingly abandoned, I'm thinking it's going to stay a vine-covered and partly roofless building.
Beyond Moclips up the coast further is empty and beautiful, but scary for two women and a child alone. The rocks along the coast are worth the drive to see even just from the car windows, but Taholah looks like the end of the world. I've heard it said that it's a sad place, and that might be true, but to us it ws creepy. We left quickly and returned to our little hotel on the sea.

Our hotel facing away from the Beach.

The road from the play area around to our hotel room.

The play area, facing the coast.

Dunegrass in front of a fishing vessel.

Gnarled and windswept trees outside our room.

The Falcon's Nest burger joint. We ate here the first night in town. Don't you just love outdoor seating when you've got a loudly whining kid with you? :D This place had great burgers (especially the XXX burger), good shakes and fries, and mediocre onion rings.