This year's annual beach pilgrimage took us all the way to Moclips, a town on the Olympic coast about six miles north of our old haunt, Iron Springs. Three families rented a house on the beach, at the historic site of a huge resort hotel that got washed away in 1911. (In many ways Moclips has never recovered from this loss. It's kind of eerie walking around this tiny town, nearly empty this early in the season, looking at 100 year old photographs -- and sometimes even remnants -- of the old resort, the railroad that once brought thousands of toursists every weekend, the glamorous, prosperous days that are never coming back.)
It was the kind of uber-beach house where every drawer handle is a silver starfish, and the picture frames are encrusted with scallop shells, and there are green glass floats hanging from the ceiling and porcelain plaques everywhere with oceanic quotes painted on them. Some of these were quite lovely, in fact: "It's always ourselves we find in the sea. -- e. e. cummings." But after a certain point we find the law of diminishing returns sets in with stuff like that. We certainly felt this way about the motto posted over the gas fireplace, in curlicue wedding-invitation font: "To the Oceans, White with Foam... God Bless America." But once we got all the plug-in air fresheners unplugged, we quite enjoyed the place: it was spacious and well-cared-for, with a hot tub, and you could walk right off the deck onto the wide, sandy, Pacific beach.
The first day a relentless wind pushed us off the open beach and up the river -- a walk we had taken the year before, when we first visited Moclips. Passing by the remnants of an old bridge, we looked across at the Quinault Indian Reservation.
The other side of the river looked so invitingly wild, we kept looking for ways to get across. A tangle of fallen trees reached nearly all the way over, but their upper branches proved impenetrable. We remembered from last year that this log bridge only led to an island -- but an island of perfect skipping rocks, well worth the effort.
Simon also remembered from last year that he had slipped and nearly fallen in. But he made it across too, with a little encouragement.
A little further on we found a pebbly spit, sheltered from the wind. Simon threw rocks in the water while the rest of us sunned ourselves and -- between splashes -- started to unwind from our frazzled weeks.
Simon, still channeling Indiana Jones, found the tree fort from last year:
But we couldn't find a way across the river.
That evening, when the wind had died down, we investigated the possibility of fording the river where it flowed out on the beach. Intrepid Andrew made it, but got wet to the waist. (Fortunately he had removed his pants before setting out. Unfortunately we had left the camera in the house!) The shorter members of our party were discouraged.
But Sunday morning the tide was out, or the river was lower, or something in the air was different, and Josie just rolled up her jeans and waded across.
It was the kind of uber-beach house where every drawer handle is a silver starfish, and the picture frames are encrusted with scallop shells, and there are green glass floats hanging from the ceiling and porcelain plaques everywhere with oceanic quotes painted on them. Some of these were quite lovely, in fact: "It's always ourselves we find in the sea. -- e. e. cummings." But after a certain point we find the law of diminishing returns sets in with stuff like that. We certainly felt this way about the motto posted over the gas fireplace, in curlicue wedding-invitation font: "To the Oceans, White with Foam... God Bless America." But once we got all the plug-in air fresheners unplugged, we quite enjoyed the place: it was spacious and well-cared-for, with a hot tub, and you could walk right off the deck onto the wide, sandy, Pacific beach.
The first day a relentless wind pushed us off the open beach and up the river -- a walk we had taken the year before, when we first visited Moclips. Passing by the remnants of an old bridge, we looked across at the Quinault Indian Reservation.
The other side of the river looked so invitingly wild, we kept looking for ways to get across. A tangle of fallen trees reached nearly all the way over, but their upper branches proved impenetrable. We remembered from last year that this log bridge only led to an island -- but an island of perfect skipping rocks, well worth the effort.
Simon also remembered from last year that he had slipped and nearly fallen in. But he made it across too, with a little encouragement.
A little further on we found a pebbly spit, sheltered from the wind. Simon threw rocks in the water while the rest of us sunned ourselves and -- between splashes -- started to unwind from our frazzled weeks.
Simon, still channeling Indiana Jones, found the tree fort from last year:
But we couldn't find a way across the river.
That evening, when the wind had died down, we investigated the possibility of fording the river where it flowed out on the beach. Intrepid Andrew made it, but got wet to the waist. (Fortunately he had removed his pants before setting out. Unfortunately we had left the camera in the house!) The shorter members of our party were discouraged.
But Sunday morning the tide was out, or the river was lower, or something in the air was different, and Josie just rolled up her jeans and waded across.
We didn't go too far up the beach -- technically you're supposed to get a $5 pass before entering the Reservation -- but those of us who made the journey got a little taste of the Other Side before wading back to join our party.
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