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Published: September 5th 2014
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Cranberry Bogs
Farming for Ocean Spray, near Long Beach, WA. Our stay at the Tokeland Hotel really was great. The atmosphere is kind of a mix between a historic hotel, B&B, and Grandpa's cottage. The whole place is very eclectic with a variety of old wooden tables and chairs in the dining area, with cloth placemats and all the lounge seating areas around the hotel have a real hodge podge mix of chairs and couches with cushions and blankets and piles of books and board games everywhere. All of the staff and the owners are very friendly and attentive and even Fat Cat and Pixie the old Golden Retriever were very welcoming. The meals were all excellent from the oysters and scallops to the eggs, cranberry sausages and coffee. The Tokeland is a VERY warm and homey place and I would strongly recommend that you do not miss stopping there if you are ever in the area.
Our first stop after leaving Tokeland was across Willapa Bay to Long Beach Peninsula which is a 28 miles skinny strip of land with sandy beaches all the way and a few small towns along the road. We stopped at one of the many Cranberry bogs where they farm this berry for Ocean
Spray. It was an interesting self-guided walk among the berries (they only flood them like you see in the commercials at harvest time). We tried some cranberry ice cream which was really good then drove up to the north end of the peninsula and saw huge piles of oyster shells everywhere as this area bills itself as the "Oyster Capital of the World".
The town of Long Beach boasts not only the World's Longest Beach but also the World's Largest Frying Pan. Cape Disappointment is at the south end of the peninsula and this high headland marks the place where the Columbia River finally merges into the Pacific Ocean. The cape was named by the early explorer Capt. John Meares, who in 1788 incorrectly interpreted the treacherous sandbars offshore to mean that, despite reports to the contrary, there was neither a major river nor any mythical Northwest Passage here. After a short but steep hike to the top of a cliff to view this area that has claimed more shipwrecks than almost anywhere else on the west coast, we headed out on the short drive to Oregon.
The "short" drive turned out to be very long as in
addition to bridge repairs going on there was a multi-car pile-up on the narrow four-mile bridge across the Columbia into Astoria, Oregon. When we finally reached the other side it was a quick drive into Seaside for the night. We used yet another discount coupon from www.hotelcoupons.com and got a $79 ocean-front room at the Ebb Tide Resort facing the concrete boardwalk all along the beach-front which the locals call "The Prom". We were lucky to find any kind of a room here as there was a huge classic car show in town and half our our hotel's lot was full of these beauties as was every other hotel in town.
Yet another huge beach here to wander across, then a photo op at the statue of Lewis & Clark at the end of their trail here in Seaside. Downtown is packed with little touristy shops, candy shops, video-game-arcades and restaurants. We wandered up and down the streets a bit then chose Finn's Fish for supper. Chris had a really good clam chowder and I had a Caesar salad with smoked salmon, also very good. The restaurant has no atmosphere though and was FREEZING so I would not recommend
it too highly.
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