Long Beach Abby and Ruby; Salmon River - Logan - Week 27 - July 5 to July 11, 2021

Hard to Believe - we are halfway through the year!!

This week two birthday outings were celebrated!  One was with Abby and Ruby at Long Beach, and the other was with Logan on the Salmon River.

What cold be better than Long Beach.....well, what about a shining sun at Long Beach - that would better,

Wide open spaces and lack of people is nice

Kite flying was perfect

Digging was good too

Not to mention vegging

We spent the night at Dismal Nitch which is where Lewis and Clark and their expedition members spent a week.  

"Imagine this. It’s early 1805, the fresh food had run out. The clothes were literally rotting off the backs of the members of the Corps of Discovery. They were traveling as fast as they could down the Columbia River, though, to meet one of the last trading ships of the season. If they made it, they’d send a set of journals and some collections home as requested by President Jefferson. But foremost was the chance to use an unlimited letter of credit from the president, a chance to “charge” all the goods the tired explorers needed, plus perhaps get a little rum, from the trade ship.

What the Corps didn’t realize, however, was that it was about to run into some of the journey’s most treacherous moments. A fierce winter storm forced the Corps off the river Nov. 10 and pinned the group to a north shore cove consisting of little more than jagged rocks and steep hillside. Captain William Clark named the dreary spot “that dismal little nitch.” For six stormy days, the group was trapped by fierce wind and high waves at the rocky shoreline. For only the second time in the expedition, Clark said he was concerned for the safety of the Corps. “A feeling person would be distressed by our situation,” he wrote in wet misery, as the expedition became in danger of foundering just within a few miles of its destination — The Pacific Ocean. Finally, the storm broke and allowed the group to move on. It missed the trading ship, but eventually achieved its exploration goals."

The girls went down to water's edge and brought me back handfuls of beautiful, souvenir quality, rocks.  The green algae on the rocks made them quite slippery, and one slip caused Abby to want to GO HOME, but the felling was short-lived.

The bunnies enjoyed the view of the Columbia as much as the girls did.

In the evening I read to them, "Babe, the Gallant Pig."

Come morning we headed in the the metropolis of Long Beach to go to the bakery and visit curio shops.  Noooooooooo!!!  The bakeys was closed....."because of the very busy fourth of July holiday weekend, we are taking Tuesday off.  Sorry for the inconvenience!"  Well fine  - - tell that to the girls.  We went to Marsh's Trading Post where the girls bought matching necklaces.  Then we walked around town.

The second afternoon we headed ten miles north to Ocean Beach.  But, if anything, the weather was even worse.  When you see blowing sand, you know it is time to head home.  We did stop at Middle Village which is one of many attractions to visit in the area.  The was a boardwalk that we followed and read all about the area and its Indian and white man history.

The girls liked the canoes on display.  According to Lewis and Clark, the Indians in this area were the best canoeists in the world.

Great Grand-daughters and great fun!

The end of the week saw me taking Logan back packing up the Salmon River to the same place when I'd gone with Jude and Eric.

For starters - Logan was a pro - no complaints - no whining or crying - lots of talking about you tubers and other valuable internet sensations - and he carried a relatively heavy pack!

About half a mile up the trail, we stopped at what looked like a nice flat/level campground.  Indeed, it was perfect for pitching tents, but access to the river was down a steep cliff and that would not do.  So we continued on up to the mile point where we'd camped before.  Because the place where we stayed with Jude and Eric was so slope-ish, we took a little trail going upstream and found a perfect tent site which was practically on the water.  It was perfect! I will call this spot Salmon's Edge!

There are lots of really big trees on the Salmon River - they make our trees in the Brunner Woods look like pikers.

A passerby told us about a campsite that was about a quarter of a mile further on up the trail.  We decided to check it out and crossed this cool bridge on the way.  The campsite was a good one - it'd be good for a lot of adults who don't want to play in the the water.\, but the river's edge was not as desirable as at Salmon's Edge.  Back we went.

Following his cousins' example, Logan became an expert at building cairns.

Also, like his cousins, he traversed the huge log that had fallen (years and years ago) across the campsite.

He became a very good trout fisherman.  He can untangle line, tie a hook onto the line. put on his own worm, cast the line, a..n..d reel in his very own fish!

On the way home we briefly stopped and the BLM Wildwood Recreation Site.  A pure waste of time....but after all, we'd just come from the real thing in the Salmon Huckleberry Wilderness, and this was a tamed down picnic area.

We stopped at Dairy Queen and Sandy and got a Six Dollar Meal.

We had a great birthday party!