20250327 Thursday, March 27, 2025 Twin Harbors to Cape Disappointment

20250327 Thursday, March 27, 2025. 

North Head Lighthouse

Cape Disappointment State Park

The temperature didn’t get below the mid-50s last night, so the furnace didn’t need to come on. We also didn’t leave our phones or any other devices on chargers last night.  The battery monitor reported 85% capacity in the morning.  It had rained on and off most of the night, and it was raining when the sun came up in the morning.  Since the campground was mostly empty, we ran the generator to make coffee, use the heat pump to warm up the coach, and top off our device batteries.  That’s when Ben discovered that although he had connected the external LP tank to the side of the RV, he had not turned the valve on the inlet on, so the generator wouldn’t start without LP.  You learn something new every trip.  

We drove from Twin Harbors to Cape Disappointment. This took us on a scenic drive through the little town of Raymond, which has commissioned a steel-cutting and welding artist to make 2D statue cutouts of fishermen, shorebirds, and other similarly themed items. These were posted all throughout the town.  

We arrived at Cape Disappointment at about 12:15 p.m.  The ranger booth was manned, so we stopped to register.  The rangers on duty looked like they were ready to engage in combat, wearing tactical vests and sidearms.  That was a bit odd.  Then when we tried to register, they said there were new policies in place that would require us to pay $10 to register if we did it through them at the window, or $8 if we reserved online. He gave me a web address and allowed me to use the park’s Wi-Fi, which really only extends about 20’ around the ranger booth.  Turns out it was a dead link.  I went back and complained that just two months ago, we just picked up the yellow phone and got registered with no registration fee.  Then he said if we registered after 2 p.m., that would be true because then we would be considered drop-in campers.  So we left and said we’d be back in 2 hrs.  We went to the park’s RV dump site and filled our fresh water tank, and then parked in the same site we have in the past, site 100, which the ranger had said was available.  

We had lunch and a short nap and then were able to register as drop-ins.  This time, we had a female ranger who had registered us in the past, and we were able to get registered for site 100 for 2 nights, but would then have to relocate to site 195 for the last 2 nights.  Site 195 is near the park entrance and a ways from the beach, but we can just take the Bronco to get to the beach, or even head up to the Long Beach beach access in town.  

Ben made a trip into Long Beach to see if he could find a milk crate at a thrift shop for our auxiliary LP tank.  He had used one that was rigged up to be mounted on the Bronco’s rear utility mount.  Those are handy for clamming because we can put wet things like the clam guns, bags, and gloves in them.  It’s a bit crowded with just one now.  Well, they had some milk crates, but they were full of vinyl albums, and not for sale.  

We walked to the beach at 4:15 p.m.  The low tide was -0.1’ at 5:50 p.m.  The wind was blowing out of the south at 25-30 mph.  We walked to where we had previously found lots of clam shows and got our limits in the past without trouble.  However, with the wind, the waves would frequently wash way up the beach and, in conjunction with the wind, would wipe clean any clam shows. We were only able to spot two actual classical clam shows, both leading to relatively small clams. Ben was able to pound out another 3 clams, but it was really tough going with the wind. There was also pretty steady rain, which further frustrated efforts to locate clams.  We kept at it until 6 p.m., but by then the winds were gusting at 35-40 mph and it was getting to be hard to even just stand straight.  

While we were clamming, we noticed a gal running up and down the beach in an ATV.  Janet chased her up and discovered she was working for the Department of Ecology and was doing a beach elevation study.  She said there was a GPS on the ATV and it was her job to map the beach contours by driving back and forth over it.  That has to be one of the more unusual federal employee jobs.  It actually looked like fun for the most part, but it must get boring after the first hundred or so miles of running back and forth down a beach in an ATV.

We returned to the RV, cleaned and cooked our 5 clams in garlic butter to complement leftover fish curry and rice that we had brought from home, reheated with the microwave.  We ran the generator to use the heat pump and microwave, but the batteries were in pretty decent shape with over 85% charge on them just from daylight recharging.  We did recharge our other devices though.  

We were able to take nice warm showers.  Washington state parks seem to have gotten rid of their coin-operated showers.  It probably cost more money to maintain the coin-operating mechanism than paying for hot water.  Without internet connectivity in the rest of the park, it’s an incentive to go to bed early and rise with the sun.