Been at the PNW Coast

I've been away from my blog but I hope you'll all understand when I show you where we've been. Let me share some of what my family has been up to. We visited the beautiful Washington coast for some rest and relaxation.

I love how our beaches in the PNW are not crowded like California or the East coast.

Here we are enjoying an IPA on the beach. We loved this  beach because you could drive right down onto the sand, set up your chairs and enjoy the day!

See the closest person is a comfortable distance from us. We don't do well in crowds.

Here Cooper is loving the attention and the surf with our daughters. 

Some people are surf fishing, probably for perch. They didn't have any luck while we were there.

If you visit a fishing port you have to go down to the docks and get the FRESHEST seafood. We bought a couple of Albacore tuna in Westport and had the guy fillet it up for us. I'm canning most of it when we get home. If you've ever had home canned tuna, you will never go back to store bought canned tuna from Asia. Our tuna is caught with a hook and line, is smaller than Asian tuna and your jar is full of tasty tuna, not water. It is simply delicious!

My DD17 just caught this fresh tuna! What a catch!

Well, she caught it from the green barrel that she's holding the tuna over.

What do you have for dinner when you are at the coast? Fresh seafood, of course.We also bought some Dungeness crab and oysters.   Dinner was green salad, fresh picked crab, oysters and a bite of tuna. Oysters on the barbie.

Picking fresh crab.

No room for salad on the plate right now. Time for the important protein food items like crab and oysters!  Add fresh lemon for sprinkling and melted butter for dipping. Yum!

A random vegetarian showed up for dinner at our campsite. He wasn't interested in sharing our bounty. Too bad... that just means more for the rest of us.

That's how we've been enjoying our time. Enjoying the beach, browsing tourist shops, looking at boats on the docks, walking along the beach, and loving life.

The Beautiful Oregon Coast

We arrived back Wednesday evening from the beautiful coast of Oregon. This trip had been planned for about a year as a graduation trip for our daughter. We brought our travel trailer, and ate all our meals in with the exception of Mo's. Since we had planned for the trip and already set aside money, the trip was reasonable. We had more fun at the beach just exploring and hiking. It was great family time.

The weather was perfect, upper 60's to lower 70's with occasional foggy areas in the morning and breezy afternoon clouds. If anyone is visiting the Oregon Coast, I highly recommend purchasing the 5 day Oregon Pacific Coast Passport. It will get you in to many "fee" areas along the coast from Fort Stevens State Park up north by Astoria, to as far south as Shore Acres by Coos Bay. It cost $10 and was well worth the money. We would have been fee'd to death without that pass.

We started in Florence and enjoyed the sandy beach, dunes, and dock at South Jetty.

Crabbing was spotty for most of the people we ran across, mostly too small and female,so we decided to forgo crabbing and buy some later. We enjoyed the waterfront shops and enjoyed a delicious meal at Mo's, where we of course had to have some of the world famous clam chowder.

This is a view overlooking Cape Perpetua.

A rocky beach fun for exploring tide pools.

Yaquina Head Lighthouse in Newport. The were approximately 60,000 Common Murre nesting on the huge rocks for mating season but I didn't get a picture.

In Newport we toured the bay front shops on the boardwalk and looked at the fishing boats. We also enjoyed several beaches along the coast. The beach can range from very rugged and rocky with high bluffs, to long stretches of sand. It is stunning and there is always someplace along the way to stop and do some beach combing, tide pool exploration, hiking, bird and whale watching, or just to enjoy the view and sound of crashing waves.

Our last night in Newport we treated ourselves to fresh Dungeness crab and Yaquina Bay oysters.
Shelling crab and BBQing oysters for a stupendous seafood feast.

Please disregard goofy teenage expressions.