The OrWa road trip diaries, day 5: Long Beach to Kalaloch

Before blasting off from Seaview and Washington’s Long Beach peninsula this morning, I had time for a rib-sticking bowl of oatmeal and marionberries at Laurie’s Homested Breakfast House and another chat with my innkeepers, Len and Miriam Atkins, who don’t like any guest’s biography or psychology going unexplored.

I told them what I was up to. They told me they’re both 80 and came to this damp corner of the world by way of South Africa, Israel and Chicago. Len’s background is in education and counseling, so before they had the Sou’Wester Lodge running full bore, he occasionally traded therapy for fish.

But the problem with a road trip such as this is that you always have to tear yourself away, because there are miles to cover. I have four days and three nights to reach the Canadian border.

“You know,” said Len thoughtfully and amiably, “what you’re doing is just about the exact opposite of what we’re trying to do here.”

I had to agree. And drive. Cape Disappointment. The Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center (because right around here, at the mouth of the Columbia, is where they finally hit the Pacific back in 1805). South Bend, Cosmopolis (which is not cosmopolitan), Aberdeen, Hoquiam.

Hours later, after an inland jog on the 101 Freeway, I finally pulled into Kalaloch, an isolated coastal lodge in Olympic National Park. No phones or TVs in rooms. No Wi-Fi. No competition for about 30 miles in either direction.

But what a great meeting of land and sea. Over the generations, tides have delivered enough enormous driftwood trunks to turn the beach into a sort of sculptural maze. When the dog descends (which is often), you begin to feel that you’ve been absorbed by an epic black-and-white landscape photo. But when the sun gets low, a little color seeps back in: Families start little fires between the logs and gather round to roast marshmallows or just get warm. (It’s legal, as long as you keep safely away from big logs and don’t stoke too big a fire.)

By the way, this makes more than four days in the Pacific Northwest without a drop of rain.

Sunday: Forks, where vampires are all the rage.

—Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times staff writer

[Photo: 1. The menu at Laurie's Homestead Breakfast House in Seaview, Wa., includes this substantial bowl of oatmeal with marionberries (a local favorite) on top; 2. The Kalaloch Lodge, which goes back to the 1930s, sits within Olympic National Park, about 30 miles from the nearest other lodging or food or gas; 3. Driftwood logs are so common, and so large, on the beach at Kalaloch that people say the first lodge here was largely built from them; 4. Jason Glover of Bellingham, Wa., and his 8-year-old daughter, Sydney, huddle over a campfire (yes, they're legal on this beach) beneath the Kalaloch Lodge in Olympic National Park, Washington; Credit: Christopher Reynolds]

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This entry was posted on Saturday, July 18, 2009 at 2:09 pm by Christopher Reynolds and is filed under Family & Kids, Islands & Beaches, National Parks, Oregon, Oregon Washington road trip, Outdoors & Adventure, Pacific Northwest, Washington. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.