Today my friend Dave and I started on a circuit around Washington’s lower left corner to visit state parks I’ve never been to before. Eleven parks are on the list and we explored three of them today.
Starting out just after sunrise from my house on a drizzly morning, we headed south along highway 18 and I-5 to Olympia. Thankfully, there weren’t any slowdowns or accidents along the way, so it was smooth sailing in Dave’s Toyota pickup through Tacoma, Olympia, and clear to Aberdeen, where we broke out into sunshine. There we stopped for second breakfast at Duffy’s, where there were few other people on a Monday morning around 9 a.m. but lots of variety on the menu. We enjoyed a leisurely meal while sitting at a pleasantly sunny table.
We then traveled on to our destination for the day: state parks around Westport. First up was Twin Harbor State Park, just a couple miles south of Westport. It appeared to be a great camping park with nearly 300 campsites that sits among the coastal pines and behind sand dunes next to the Pacific Ocean. We parked and took a short trail to the beach through pine tress and grassy dunes.
Next, we visited Grayland Beach State Park, just a few miles south of Twin Harbors. Also on the Pacific shore, this park had a really wide beach, which we walked across. And we spotted our our first Brown Pelicans of the day here.
Our third park was Westport Light State Park, which is really large. We chose the part next to the Westport jetty and found a spot on the bank behind the jetty to sit and watch the waves and the birds. The waves were huge, 9-11 feet according to a weather report, and there were lots of pelicans as well as several other species of birds plus a sea lion in the surf. We could see Ocean Shores across the mouth of Grays Harbor, but mostly we enjoyed watching the waves break on the jetty and the pelicans flying overhead. (I didn’t get any photos of pelicans.)
We ate our packed lunches here and then drove into Westport to explore the town. We found a little cabin to rent at the Westport Inn and relaxed there for a couple of hours, listening to the wind howl outside. Then we walked to a nearby fish place for dinner, where I had a fish taco that was much bigger than expected and clam chowder while Dave had fish and chips.
Lori's Travels 