Manhattan Beach, Oregon

Tears are words the heart cannot express.

Manhattan Beach --- gorgeous

There were several things going on in our little world.   The kids were no longer at the beach with us.  Our reservations at our current park were coming to a close and to top it off, Tammi and Michael were flying into the Portland airport.  We weren’t sure where we were heading next but figured it would be inland … someplace.  You’ve probably figured out by now that I’m not very good at making plans and keeping them.  Oh, I’m really, really good at the making of plans.  It’s just the keeping them that causes the problem.

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Tuesday -- After our fantastic boat ride, we took the boat out of the water and headed inland to visit.  Of course, the reason we took the boat out of the water was because we thought we would be leaving the coastal area in just a few days.  You might have guess that’s not what happened.  We’re still at the coast.  We’ll be here for a few more days.

Manhattan Beach

We put the boat back where it belongs and ran fresh water through the two engines.  After having them in salt water, we needed to make sure they are cleaned and ready to go again.  That salt can certainly cause a lot of damage so we wanted to be sure the engines were rinsed out with fresh water.

While in the Portland area we had a chance to visit a little with Tammi and see her new home.  The moving van arrives from New Jersey on August 8th … her birthday.  After being a Texas resident for 19 years, a New Jersey resident for nearly 3 years, she’ll finally be a Washington resident again.

Remember building sand castles?

Wednesday -- The weather was gorgeous.  We decided to hunt out another beach.  It was still just Terry and I … so far. This time we stopped at Manhattan Beach which is just a few miles away.  The gorgeous beach was totally deserted.  As you can tell by photos above, there weren’t a lot of people on it.  The tide was way out.

Low tide at Garibaldi

We continued on down to Garibaldi.  The tide was still out and we could see someone digging for clams in the bay.  We watched for a while as he continued to dig and put the find in his bucket.  Since he was using a clam gun, I'm guessing he was getting razor clams.  I should have asked.  I would have thought since it was the bay it might have been butter clams but I've never seen one dig butter clams with a clam gun only razor clams.  Usually just a small shovel works with the others but what did I know.  It has been a long time since I've done any clam digging.  Now I mainly just eat them and not dig them.

I wanted to try the clam chowder on the wharf at, Fisherman's Corner. They boast about about the chowder but since they were closed I didn’t have a chance to see if the boasting was justified.  Oh well ………… maybe another day.

The RV park below is Harbor Inn.  It sits  on the bay at Garibaldi.  I said the other day if we were going to pick a place to spend a month or two at the coast, this would certainly be it.

Justin and Michael did decide that they wanted to spend a few days  with us. I probably need to rephrase that too. They decided they wanted to do a little more crabbing. It just so happened that we were in the right area for them to do it. All they had to do was change Michael’s airplane ticket to next week and out of Seattle instead of Portland. Of course, this meant we were back looking for another place to stay closer to Seattle so we could transport him to the airport.  Perhaps a return to Murray Beach is in the near future ... we really liked it there.  Besides, eating at Anthony's on the wharf wouldn't be hard to do again.

Next, Justin had to drive to the coast (his truck but Tammi’s gas) and everything would be provided -- including bed, food and free activities. What a deal!  Guess who gets to take Michael to Sea-Tac for his flight out on Wednesday?  You guessed it!

Our find -- a perfect little sand dollar

As far as we’re concerned, it’s memories in the making and we were all for it. I certainly wish I had more memories of spending time with my grandparents … but I don’t. I lived in Washington. They lived in Texas. Maybe that’s why I feel memories are important. So, we’re going to be doing a little more crabbing but this time without the boat. We’ll be doing it from the dock.

So, when Thursday rolls around we’ll have two boys staying with us for a few more days.  Our food supply is getting a little low but we'll cross that bridge after they eat up what we have left!!