Are we having fun yet??

A full week on the road and, in spite of some first-timers teething problems, we are also having fun and learning the rich history of the Northwest of the US.

Our first stop as you know was in Westport, WA – we understand it’s a tourist mecca in the summer and early fall. The Tourist information people suggested we visit nearby Tokeland, particularly the Hotel which is a National Historic Landmark – there’s a fine history available “Tokeland Hotel, A History” by Ruth McCausland. We had afternoon tea and a tour of the Hotel by the owner. This “is the place to get away from it all” no phones, no television and with beautiful bedrooms as they were in the 19^th century.

The following day after visiting Gray Harbor Lighthouse which at 109 years old is the oldest working lighthouse, certainly in the Northwest, we returned to Tokeland Hotel for dinner of Cranberry Pot Roast; a melt in the mouth dish which we followed with a Marion berry cobbler, yummy!

Westport has a long tradition of fishing; some of which we sampled on Saturday night in The One-Eyed Crab, the clam chowder was the best we’ve tasted, thankfully, we had decided to share an entrée of Halibut Fish & Chips which was superb and sufficient.

From Westport we traveled to Long Beach, WA which journey we’ve already written about.

While in the Long Beach area we visited Cape Disappointment on the North side of where the Columbia River meets the Pacific – the bar at the mouth of the river has to be seen to be believed. Here we visited two more lighthouses, literally 2 miles apart, North Head Lighthouse and Cape Disappointment Lighthouse. However, the highlight was our visit to the Lewis & Clark Interpretative Centre; a MUST VISIT for anyone visiting this area!

We left Long Beach, via Astoria for Cannon Beach, OR. Our stopover in Astoria was to visit the Columbia River Maritime Museum; to try to understand the river, the bar at its mouth and its maritime history; this again is a MUST VISIT.

Yesterday, as you know we played golf at virtually our own private course Gearhart Golf Links, a very tight, challenging course that we thoroughly enjoyed; the scores were both respectable. Enough said!

One of our ambitions is to visit as many National Parks as possible and today we visited our first the Lewis & Clark National Park and Fort Clatsop. The highlight for me was that for the second time in 2010 (the first time was on a bus in San Francisco) I was “carded” to prove that I am over 62 when I wanted to purchase a Lifetime Pass to all National Parks – tremendous value  at $10 for both Adele and me. 4 hours later we left still wondering at the tenacity and perseverance of the Lewis & Clark party.

So…yes, we are enjoying ourselves.