I’ve been on blogging hiatus. I’m starting to write again. Think I just needed a break. Anyhow, I wanted to share some adventures from June when Sharon and I camped out in Ocean Shores for her birthday. We try and make a birthday trip every year. First year was Saltspring Island and this past year was Ocean Shores. Not sure what we’ll do for 2012 but there’s lots of time to figure that out.
Ocean Shores is a little place on a peninsula in Washington, just west of Olympia and Aberdeen. I’ve always wanted to check that area out since Aberdeen is where Kurt Cobain grew up and Olympia was a hotbed of indie music in the 1990’s. We swung into Evergreen State College on the way home and wandered around. Sleater-Kinney, one of my favorite bands, was founded while Carrie and Corin went there.
Aberdeen is a ragged little industry town. I can imagine someone like Kurt Cobain building up some angst in a town like that. Sharon and I hit up a movie theater and did a little clothes shopping in a mall. We also hit a grocery store where I discovered 3 liter cans of chocolate syrup! Ugh. Makes me queasy thinking about it.
It took all day to drive down. We stopped at Trader Joe’s in Olympia to stock up (especially for their incredibly delicious Hefeweisen beer) and made the campsite at around 10pm, just in time to grab a spot before they closed the gates. I set up the tent using the car’s headlights and we settled in for the night.
The next day we wheeled down to the town of Ocean Shores and a scan of the radio dial unearthed a public access radio station with some old hippie doing jazz music. We were in stitches listening to this guy! He would ramble on, lose his train of thought, and then jump into a rant about something entirely unrelated. I managed to grab a recording of him talking about spiking his coffee. After some of his jazz music we heard him ranting about something, but it really didn’t make any sense until we realized that he had the booth mic on while he was talking on the phone, unaware that his end of the conversation was being broadcast!
The beaches around there are so much fun. Everybody rips around on them in their vehicles and when we went to Ocean Shores we got to see the main area where people would fly kites and hang out. As Sharon pointed out, the roar of the open ocean is much different than the sheltered beaches we have in Vancouver.
Later that day we checked out the Flag Day parade in Ocean Shores then packed up and wheeled down to Grayland Beach. That’s another beautiful area with a huge beach. Really nice campground too.
Finally it was time to come home. It’s nearly a full day’s drive to get back from Grayland and we took time to stop in Olympia for another Trader Joe’s visit as well as REI in Seattle. I find MEC lacking now that I’ve been to REI. So much more stuff! Especially for bikes. It really doesn’t compare.
