It’s November, it’s Sunday and its sunny. This has to be the mildest winter we have seen in the Seattle area in years. In even more rare form is the Washington Coast is also clear today. There is only one thing to do: Go to the Beach.
It’s taken me (Mama Pilot) some time to adjust to the “beach” of the Pacific Northwest. The first time we took the little dude to the beach was Cannon Beach in Oregon. This Florida girl was ready: swim suit, flip flops, sunblock, it was summer, and of course I was going in the ocean. Well, if you aren’t from the area I will tell you now, you need none of those.
The Pacific Northwest beaches are known for being overcast with low fog and/ or cold and windy.
At home, we started to prepare for our day adventure. First step was to decide what airport to go into. Papa Pilot suggested Ocean Shores. So naturally I put HQM in the internet browser looked at photos, searched Airnav and put HQM in our local FATPNW search to see what people are saying about it. One comment mentions “it’s only a 5 minute walk into town.”
Then we get the real things we need for the PNW beach:
- Baby Bag (bottle, milk in Hydro Flask, diapers, wipes, emergency kit)
- Extra Bag (Change of clothes and extra shoes for both kids, water bottles)
- Tula baby carrier
- Bag of winter clothes (hats, mittens, coats)
- Bag of simple sand toys and waterproof beach blanket
We get to the airport and load up our gear for the short adventure. Papa pilot asks me to load W04 in the Nav. Pause. What? I thought we were going to HQM? A little bit of a miscommunication there. But it’s fine, we have never been there and he has already looked it up, so we just go there and decide to play the ground logistics by ear.
I try to get some cell service to figure out the logistics before we get there, but being so close to the Olympics the area is mostly rural and the service is limited.
Once we land, I discover it is in fact a 40 minute walk to the beach. We don’t have the scooter or bike for Little Dude and his walking limits are about 15 minutes. We decided to do it. We find the best walking route:
- walk out of the gate towards the golf course (walking along side of quite road on gravel) Albatross St NE
- turn right at the golf course (walking through parking lot and on grass)
- then turn left to go over the small boardwalk
- turn right to walk down Point Browne Ave Ne ( there is a sidewalk or a large grass area to walk all the way to E Chance A La Mer NE or you can turn left right before the windjammer and walk on Minard Ave NW. to E Chance A La Mer NE
- that takes you to the beach, and Murphys ice cream
I think there is a shorter way to just the beach, but the ice cream stop was motivation for The Little Dude to just keep going.
The beach was beautiful, sunny, not to windy, but cold! The kids had a blast playing in the hard wet sand amongst the waves. The Little Dude dug a huge hole and of course plane girl wanted to play in it!
While everyone had a great time at the beach, until it was time to leave and Plane Girl was wet and had to be changed in the cold. The Little Dude’s hands were cold and he didn’t want to walk back to the plane and whining ensured.
Not surprising though; our walk was purposefully the direction of the grocery store, so we could get more milk for Plane Girl and snacks for The Little Dude on the way back. The snacks did the trick and the walk wasn’t too bad.
The Pilots Shack and bathroom were both clean and maintained. The code to the bathroom was the first 3 numbers in the AWOS and once in the bathroom you could use the key to access the small lounge. In the lounge there were a few chairs, WIFI, guest book, and a bulletin board.
The board did have the number to a taxi and there were Uber and Lyft drivers available, but it is always so difficult to do that with the car seats. What do you do with 2 large car seats when you get where you are going?
