Camping on Washington's Coast

Over Labor Day weekend we decided to finally explore the coast of Washington.  We drove to Kalaloch and Ruby Beach. The Washington coast is so varied and wild.  There are so many sea stacks jutting out of the ocean and many rocky cliffs.   

 The kids loved climbing in and out of the rocks when it was low tide.

 She kept rolling her eyes when I would ask to take a picture so I told her she didn't have to smile.  She responds with an excited, "Really?" and then gave me this face and pose.  Apparently I have been depriving her all this time with the expectation of a smile with a picture.

 You can get an idea of the area from this picture.  The rocks jutting out of the ocean were so big and in the far background you can see the piles of driftwood.  I have never seen so much driftwood piled up.

 It's really neat to time your visit just right to see all the ocean has to offer at low tide.

 We built a small dam and created a town down stream to watch it flood once we removed the dam.  Scott always did this as a kid on Lake Superior and was happy to help construct another dam and town.

 That is Abbey Island in the distance.  Most of that island is largely volcanic rock. It was really neat to see what volcanoes and glacial ice can do to an area.  The sea stacks were huge and made the coast look so wild.  The ocean seems less forgiving here than Florida.  

 There were so many flat stones all over the beach and the kids had fun building cairns.  They also loved climbing over and under the massive piles of driftwood on the beach. 

 He wanted to find the smallest rock he could to finish the cairn.

 We enjoyed camping at Minnie Peterson, one of Washington's many free campgrounds.  

Why eat the marshmallow when you can create a marshmallow man?

  Or burn a marshmallow tree. 

 

This was Salt Creek.  We decided to take a detour on the way home and explore more places. There were really cool tide pools here and the moss colors on the rock walls were so vibrant.  We missed low tide here and would love to come back to explore it another time.  It was windy and cold when we were there and the sun was just coming out.  The area reminded me of Split Rock on the north shore of Lake Superior.