Sandblasted in Westport

 
March 24, 2023: Our children are growing up with a very warped sense of what a beach vacation entails... I feel a little guilty but the state schedules the razor clam digs and the kids are still a little young for rock hopping on the Westport jetty during the summer so cold beaches it is (dodging responsibility is one of my super powers).
Our first dig day came with particularly strong winds and high surfs. I managed all of two clams and one of those was dug up by the wave action and rolled up the beach to me. That same wave action had most of the clams bunkered down deep to avoid the same fate and with the family already huddled back in the truck, I had to concede this would be my worst digging performance.
On the plus side, since I didn't have to spend hours processing 30 clams, we headed back inland to Junction City and Hoquiam to visit some of my old haunts and show off the family to former colleagues. Finished out the day back in downtown Westport where the waves were periodically splashing over the jetty and onto the marina's road.

March 25, 2023: Day 2 brought clear, calm skies even if the surf was still a little higher than ideal. The whole crew trudged to the beach but this time we were also joined by local reinforcements, two most excellent clammers and a surfer to make sure I didn't look like a failure two days running.
The digging was good and everyone collected their limits without any drama. You just had to remember on the bigger waves to scoop up the little guy so he didn't get swamped. 
Nap time meant clam cleaning but for being an enthusiastic supervisor, the eldest got to have a bonus trip to Washington's tallest lighthouse. 
Originally built adjacent to the shore, its a good half mile inland now and that big, beautiful ling cod habitat (also known as the Westport Jetty) will continue to deposit more and more sand.
We wrapped up the day with rearranging all of the driftwood and celebrating what was glorious weather for anytime of the year in Westport. 

March 26, 2023: We could have stuck around and waited for one last clam tide but as the designated cleaner, I got lazy... Instead we headed for Bottle Beach which I had been driving past for 10 years. The clam tide was in evidence as it was hard to see if there was any water left in the bay. 
We didn't find any bottles but it was interesting to walk amongst the abandoned piers of Ocosta. If wikipedia is to be believed, the town of Ocosta was formed from a spat between Northern Pacific Railroad and the town of Aberdeen. Aberdeen didn't want to pay for the privilege of being the terminus for the NP's track so Aberdeen was bypassed. NP didn't do their research though and the doubly whammy of the rivers washing out the rail line and their high sediment loads doomed the Ocosta harbor and the town eventually disappeared. Ocosta goes down as one of the very last railroad boom towns and if you really want to get in the weeds, a University of Denver grad student wrote a thesis on the topic. A nugget from that document was an old Chicago Daily Tribune story from 1894 that a tree near the town was found to be 407' tall and 70' in circumference at its base. I guess its pre-tape measures so maybe not accurate but if true that is 30' taller than the current tallest tree in the world (a coastal redwood in CA).
Luckily for the kids, I learned all the dry facts afterwords and didn't ruin their last beach romp!