Written February 2019
Day 2
We woke up Saturday morning to the delicious smell of fried spam, eggs, and rice. Imelda was busy cooking us up some breakfast before our day out. And on top of that, we also had some danggit! It was already a great start to the day! After we were nice and filled up, we made our way up to Washington, into the town of Ilwaco to check out Cape Disappointment.
Cape Disappointment’s’ located in a little peninsula, hanging off the western part of Washington, looking into Baker Bay on one side, and the Pacific Ocean on the other. Norina had been here before, but only saw one lighthouse real quick, and didn’t walk around too much, so she wanted to spend more time here to check out more of the park.
We started off our walk, checking out Waikiki Beach, and then found our way over to the trail to take us to the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse. Norina hadn’t been to this lighthouse yet, so another nice first – as we got some nice views of the lighthouse along 1.5 mile hike up – and down – and up. The view from the lighthouse itself was alright – looking at the lighthouse itself was probably better though. We were treated to a nice surprise when the Coast Guard on duty let us into the lighthouse and look through the huge telescope in there out into the waters!
Waikiki Beach
Making our way to the Lighthouse
Cape Disappointment Lighthouse
On the way back, we went off the main trail into a small pretty beach area. Right off the beach, was a little rocky island that could be reached whenever the water was shallow. We saw a couple people on it, so decided to give it a shot. The view was a tad better from up on it – it was more of a fun physical challenge to get up and down it – as some spots were sketchier than we initially realized, but we made it!
Off-trail Beach
After we made our way back to the car, we decided to drive out to different area of the park and take some short walks on some different trails in the park. Our first stop was North Head Lighthouse. This is the one Norina had already been to. It was partially under construction, but still nice to look at! We also walked some of the Discovery Trail out to another beachy area, and some different viewpoints, before saying goodbye to Cape Disappointment State Park.
North Head Lighthouse
Walking the Trails
At one of the trailheads, there was a nice map of the Discovery Trail, which is probably about a 15 mile paved path, which makes it out to Long Beach. Seemed like a nice place to take a bike onto – and decided we’d have to do it some other time. On the map though, we saw there were 3 sculpture points of interest in Long Beach. So we decided to drive out there, and walk around there some to check them out. Our first stop was Clark’s Tree – which was apparently where William Clark (of Lewis and Clark) ended his journey out west.
Long Beach
From here, we drove up a couple miles to get closer to the other 2 sculptures. Just so happens, we parked at a popular ice cream stop – so decided some ice cream sounded like a great idea! We waited in line for quite a while, but it was worth it! There were tons of choices, and we eventually decided to go with an espresso flavored ice cream in a waffle bowl. We ate it as we walked on the boardwalk to see the whale sculptures, and even though it was getting pretty cold and windy out, the ice cream was still delicious!
Ice Cream and Whales
Finally, on to the last spot – another whale, and a sculpture of William Clark, as the sun started setting. It was starting to get pretty with the sun coming down, so we decided to walk out to the beach, and enjoy it from there to put a nice end to our day out on the Washington peninsula.
Long Beach Sunset
When we got back to Imelda’s, she was just finishing up being a wonderful host for us, and making us dinner – some very tasty cod and shrimp! It was the perfect meal after a day of around 10 miles or so of walking around different trails! After we watched a replay of the Australian Open women’s final and chatted for a bit, we decided to sleep early, so that we could get up before sunrise to hike up to the Column and see sunrise from up there.
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The Dating Life of Norina and Jonathan 