It’s summer, so a great time to sneak out to the Coast* when I can! This time, it was Emee and myself heading to the small town of Seaview on the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington State, about a half-hour outside of Astoria, Oregon. I’ve explored a little bit of the peninsula before, but have only stayed at Cape Disappointment on the far southern tip. This time, we managed to snag a “beach house” (in reality, a condo) that did have a view of the Pacific.
This was strictly a “driving trip”. We thought about bringing bikes, but figured we wouldn’t have the time, so we left them. If we come again, we should, since the paved Discovery Trail travels from the town of Long Beach south to Ilwaco (skirting the cape). We drove out Sunday afternoon, July 1st, deciding to take the more scenic ways to/from. On the outbound trip we headed up I-5 to Longview, and then took WA SR 4 all the way to the peninsula. This was indeed longer than the more direct route of US 30, but was quieter and more scenic, passing through cute communities like Cathlamet and Skamokawa.
Tuesday was spent on the beach. It was a short walk from the condo to the beach itself. At 28 miles long, the Long Beach is indeed “long”. It claims to be the longest beach on the West Coast, which could be true, since the Pacific Coast is much more hilly and rocky than the Atlantic.** We spent time wandering the beach and checking out the town of Long Beach itself, having a great dinner at a place that had a view of the ocean. We also did a quick before-dark drive to the end of the peninsula, checking out the cute pseudo-New England village of Oysterville.
We headed to Astoria on Wednesday afternoon. We had a pass to go to the Maritime Museum, but spent too much time drinking beer and eating pizza that we decided to forego it. There will be a next time! And we took the long and circuitous routing home of OR 202/47/Scappoose-Vernonia Rd/US 30. Much of this route is the way I’d bike to Astoria. It goes through a sparsely populated area of Northwestern Oregon and is pretty scenic too.
It was a nice getaway. But I need to get out there again…
*Here it’s always “the coast”, never “the beach” or (shudder) “the shore”.
**The Atlantic Coastal Plain is damn flat!
Urban Adventure League 
Pizza, beer, coast, and sunshine
Sounds like an ideal getaway to me
Sounds like a fun trip I really need to get to the coast more although I do enjoy regular trips to my local beaches in West Seattle its not quite the same. These days I can’t think of Astoria without thinking of Fort George beer