Dawn, (my wife) and I decided to go for a short getaway last week.  She works in a Dr.'s office and when he goes on vacation the entire staff goes on vacation.  He went to Palm Springs so we went to the south western corner of Washington State.  We went to Long Beach Washington. We stayed at a very nice little cottage at the Boardwalk Cottages  We were hoping for some clear skies but left Idaho expecting rain.  It did rain the entire drive over.   In fact it seem to rain harder and harder the closer we got.  We drove over there on the North side of the Columbia River.  The highway on the south side is bigger and faster but we thought we would like some different scenery.  We always go the other route.  We took out time and it took about 9 hours including stopping for dinner.  We chose the cheapest of the cottages to stay in.  It was small but nice.  We really enjoyed the cable TV with a zillion channels.  We haven’t had that for a while.  Dawn got to watch the dog show.  The weather turned out pretty nice.  Long Beach is on a long peninsula with the ocean on one side

And the bay on the other

Long Beach is where Lewis and Clark actually made it to the pacific.  We became good friends with Lewis and Clark going to the interpretive center and the light House on Cape Disappointment. 

It was a little disconcerting to read the tsunami warning signs around Long Beach.  The entire peninsula is flat with minimal elevation.  Some of the signs would point in a direction and say tsunami escape route.  They usually pointed to a small hill about the size of a pitchers mound on a baseball field.  I figured if we hear anything about a tsunami I’m going to drive off the peninsula and into the hills on the mainland (about a 15 minute drive).  Then one sign actually said in case of a tsunami warning don’t try to leave the peninsula.  There will not be enough time.  So I guess we will all stand on the pitchers mound and watch the waves come in.  I hope it will be a sunset. 

The indoor kite competition was happening one day, so we took that in.  It was great.  Not something you see everyday.  If I can figure out how to upload some video I took I’ll add a clip to octopustree.com.  They fly these very light kites around a gymnasium to music and they can really make them dance.   Not exciting but interesting.