Cats and Trails and Garden Tales
Musings on cats, travel, gardens and life
Long Beach Peninsula and Long Beach, the Town
Long Beach is perhaps my favorite place on the Washington Coast and good for a visit any time of year.
The beach proclaims itself to be the longest in the world.
Perhaps it is if you count the entire peninsula which is 28 miles in length; or maybe it’s only the longest drivable beach, who knows for sure?
Either way, I prefer walking, and these sandcastles greeted me one morning.
I also found birds in abundance, of all sizes and persuasions, including the usual gulls and shorebirds,
and the not so usual and unexpected vulture!
The boardwalk is nice for keeping sand off your feet and the paved path below great for riding your bike. We took the boardwalk one night to watch the sunset,
and the moonrise!
One block over from the ocean is Main Street where we shopped, enjoyed the murals, sculptures and quirky Marsh’s Museum, and especially the bakery!
We also visited the two lighthouses nearby,
Cape Disappointment Lighthouse from Waikiki Beach (left), and North Head Lighthouse (right) with views of the ocean below. Both lighthouses are still operational.
And no trip to Long Beach is complete without crossing into Oregon via the 4.1-mile-long Astoria-Megler Bridge, over the mouth of the Columbia River, so we did.
Views from the bridge are great, these are looking from Astoria towards Washington.
I’ll save the highlights from Oregon for later, including the wreck of the Peter Iredale (I never get tired of seeing it) and Cannon Beach, arguably the most famous of Oregon’s beach towns.
~ Susanne
Cats and Trails and Garden Tales 
Amazing photos, Suzanne, and the sand art is beautiful! 😍
Thanks, John. Glad you enjoyed the pictures!
You’re welcome, Suzanne. 😊
Very impressive sand art.
what a wonderful place. The sand sculptures are so great. Beautiful pictures, Suzanne
Thanks so much, Don! It’s a special place. I’m glad you enjoyed the pictures. 😊
Love the sand castles and the bridge is great too. I used to enjoy driving that. So many great spots on that coast. Long Beach has an annual kite festival and I had friends who used to go down each year and play music there.
Thanks, Graham. So much to do on the Long Beach Peninsula. Someday, I need to make it to the kite festival.
Terrific photos and always interesting how under-developed Washington’s coast is compared to Oregon…makes it a more bucolic, isolated environment without the traffic and tourism….thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much, John. It really is undeveloped with old-fashioned charm. I never get tired of visiting the area.
This looks like our sort of place, although we didn’t get quite this far south on our Washington trip. The views are lovely, especially the sunset ones, and the town seems full of the sort of quirky details we enjoy 🙂 And I’d love to drive across that bridge, or better still be driven so I could take photos as we crossed!
Hi Sarah, yes, it’s an old fashioned beach-town stuck in the 1950’s. Slow pace, with nice places to eat. And the whole area is full of raw beauty and lots of history too. Crossing over the bridge to Oregon makes a complete trip!
I have commented before I think on taking the ferry over the Columbia. I never made it to the bridge. Because my mother had a cabin on the Oregon coast we spent all our time there.
I remember you mentioning the ferry. The bridge opened in 1966. It’s high and gives you good views. And both sides of the river with their respective coasts make an interesting and complete trip.
I love unspoilt beaches, and that’s a great one! Sand sculptures are always good to see, thought it’s a shame when they are lost to the tide. The doughnuts in that shop seem expensive at $1.25 each. I can buy 5 plain doughnuts for £1 at our local supermarket. (But they may not be as good as the Long Beach ones, I have no way of knowing.)
Best wishes, Pete.
Long Beach is definitely unspoiled. The sand sculptures were near the entrance to the beach, a long way from shore, so will likely be knocked down by humans or dogs. And oh, those donuts! Cheap by our standards, freshly baked every morning and fabulous, nothing like what you’d get in a grocery store.
We took a day trip in the Rocky Mountains yesterday, but I would have rather gone to the beach! I had to go with what I have. I would have enjoyed the sand sculptures and clean air at the beach though. Too much smoke here, from Californian and Canadian fires. Ugh.
I love the Rockies, but the beach is always special! We haven’t gotten any smoke here yet in the Pacific Northwest, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it arrived before the summer’s over.
Enjoy the outdoors while you can!
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