Long Beach and Adventures

This is what my car was meant for. Riding down the country roads, out to the Pacific down some unknown highway.

The City of Astoria from the Astoria Column

Astoria & Where the Columbia Meets the Ocean

Meeting people is an art highly sought after, and rarely found. We have taken on a new housemate for a couple of months, and on Saturday she and I traveled out to the Pacific. I decided to go see the Long Beach peninsula this time round because it was an area I have never seen before.

I've been on the inside of Willapa Bay and seen the Long Beach peninsula from the east, but the lure of the Pacific ocean lay right across that small ridge I always had in the distance.

The View from North of Raymond

The peninsula  has some of the strangest landscapes I have seen in a while. It acts like the mountains until you are well onto the narrow stretch of land. Then, the mountains fall away, and all that is left is open sky, dunes, and beach grass. If you deviate to the west at any point of the departing journey, you tend to hit the ocean quite quickly:

They say Long Beach gets its name because it is the "longest continuous stretch of beach" in the US. There is also a part called "Waikiki Beach" because its sands resemble those found in Hawaii. And the towns themselves remind me of the small beach villages in Florida. They dot the landscape with silly tourist shops and the best seafood places you can find. Fresh catch right that day.

The contrast of the landscapes here is even more dramatic than in Central Oregon. The cliffs intersect with many more beaches, and the water is surprisingly not that cold for this time of year.

The cliffs led to many more spots to swim, if you could get over the surf.

We stopped and had lunch/dinner at a local grille, and thankfully they had boca burgers for myself. Their sauce was to die for, and really made the whole thing "pop" in a certain way.


The drive back was uneventful, other than the fact that we took US 30 back to Longview, and along the way we were able to see the summit of Mount Rainier over the looming Cascade Mountains. After returning, I set out to play a bit of D&D, and came home at 11 PM exhausted. I'm enjoying writing this blog post for everyone, but I figure it is time for dinner and bed. We are moving into a new office tomorrow, and I'm going to need all the rest I can get to setup my new space.

Foo Fighters and Rain

The rain has come once again.

Its been cloudy and rainy for the last three days, and I am awaiting winter's onset once again.

This time around, I am prepared. Well. Not really. But I can sure as hell try.

I find myself listening to "Wake Me Up When September Ends" by Green Day. I don't know why. Just feels like the right mood.

That would be the view from the library where I am writing this right now. The camera's auto-enhance makes it look brighter than it actually is.

September has taken forever. It has literally been one of the longest months I have experienced, and I'm just dreading that it gets over with soon.

Right on key autumn hit. It got cold one night, and it hasn't gotten above 75° since. I kind of enjoyed the beginning of the rain. It was like the cold gray blanket had descended back on our moderately sized valley.

"Our"

I've started identifying with this place.

I wonder if this is what comes with the year end of the cycle. Did it take me that long to get here? It's a tough love. Traveling the path has been less like a smoothly paved North Carolina highway, and more like trudging up one of the taller Cascades on an unimproved gravel road in a four cylinder car. The journey takes forever, and it busts up different parts of your car, but you do get there.

So what is next? Do I want to stay here? I know I still have a year left, but it weighs on me. I don't want to pursue connections if I'm not going to stay here. But I want connections. I can't keep still. I don't want to just "go on" here. I want to explore.

See.

Experience.

Return.

I entice you to ponder the definition of "Home". What does it mean for you?

I can't decide on a definition. Does fate dictate that I will need to settle down eventually? Can a living be made place-hopping? I don't want to be that jerk though.

My reservations are large, but my aspirations are larger. So many things to contemplate. And I have so much to consider. One one hand, I don't like being alone, but on the other hand, I love to travel. I want to see places and become acquainted with them. But I want to see everywhere.

Ohio was the starting place. New England was the taste. Warren Wilson was the honeymoon. Ireland and Barcelona were the extravagant spending. Vancouver is... The doldrums? Painful reflections and life lessons?

Whatever it may be, with the turn of the clouds and the cold I come upon another year here. Lets make the best of it.

Windy Ridge

So if you were to ask me which of the three sides of Mount Saint Helens I liked the most... Well I'd say I like all of them the best for different reasons.

The North side it's for the "easy tourist/learn about the mountain itself" experience. The road is the nicest, the drive is the clearest, but the crowds are the biggest. But the facilities are also really educational, with lots to do for families.

The South side is for the adventurers. The ones who want to get out and play around the mountain in nature. The roads here are half the time gravel, but the experiences are twice the fun. You get to descend into an old lava tube cave with nothing but a gas powered lamp, hike in a basalt valley with a one person width swinging suspension bridge as the end reward, or even climb the mountain itself.

Finally, there is the East side. This is the side for awe and inspiration. It is by far the farthest out, but gets you the closest to the mountain. When you pull up to the final overlook, Windy Ridge, you and your car are literally three miles from the start of the crater. Each lava dome is clearly visible, and you can see where the volcano has started to rebuild itself.

On the way up, you get great views of Mount Adams to the east, and Mount Hood to the south. The road is a mix between pavement and rubble, but it makes the journey that much more valuable. The forests are old growth, interrupted by the sudden decimation of the 1980 eruption.

You get to drive into the pumice plain, and your car sails among the sticks of seared trees and the sea of downed timber.

The half barren mountaintops are like two sides of the same coin, the west facing slopes gone to bedrock, the east facing slopes, spared from 1300 degree mudslides.

You can even see and visit the famous Spirit Lake, once home to the Mount Saint Helens Lodge, which is now under 250 feet of earth and rock. The lake itself still has the log mat, still floating about from the 1980 explosion.

I sat and thought (call it meditated?) for a while at the top of Windy Ridge. I sat in the pumice and ash, and took in the marvel of being so close to something of such immeasurable power. And being surrounded by others which are much older, and contain much more than the geological youngster of Mount Saint Helens.

I even saw the colossal Rainier off in the distance, holding the title of grandest of them all. Rising 14,411 feet in the air, it is plainly visible between two mountain peaks.

So here I am. Sitting among giants. I still can't fathom it to this day.

What more can I say? Pixels cannot capture the amount of beauty in this world.