Disclaimer: This post is one of those that ended up being written years after the experience was had. Sadly, there were no notes taken so whatever is shared here must be extracted from the images and what memories they may have lent us. Fortunately, there was an itinerary still in my directory of travel plans, so that will help with some details. As to why this wasn’t noted or blogged about, I was in the throes of writing/editing my book Stay In The Magic and felt that any other deep writing would derail that fragile effort.

Up again early, waking at the Seaview Motel ready for our drive north to Oysterville, Washington.

If that guard donkey hadn’t been on duty and alert to my presence, I would have scaled the fence and poked my head into that old home. I was certain that the falling-down appearance was simply a decoy to trick people into not exploring the treasures left behind by previous occupants. Oysterville just isn’t the place it used to be, not that we’ve ever been out here before, but one could imagine.

Leadbetter Point State Park didn’t deliver us to the ocean views we were looking for in the time we had remaining, and so we had to be satisfied that we’d been this far north on this tiny spur of Washington.

The reason we were short on time was that we had a two-hour drive to an appointment at 11:45 at Ridgefield Kayak.

We had booked four hours on the water with a guide who was taking us up Lake River on the edge of the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge.

Paddle, paddle, paddle, we paddled quite the way for us to reach the destination Caroline and I were aiming for.

Here we are onshore at Bachelor Island next to the Columbia River.

And back to Lake River as we make our way to the dock from which we had departed.

Our drive took us to Vancouver, Washington, where we had dinner at Patrick’s Hawaiian Food, another stop on the Columbia River for a sunset shot that was diffused by the heavy cloud cover, and then over to the airport in Portland. I think we did everything we possibly could on this 5-day excursion into the Pacific Northwest.