Ocean Escape

in the "woods" just outside of Westport

More heat and more smoke on the way, but the ocean looked good.  I don't really like to go out and recreate on the weekend, but my spouse has a caregiver for 8 hours Sunday and smoke was due to move in on Monday, so I went.

Crowds on a beach walk are not as bad as crowds on the trail.  The beach is wide, you don't really have to talk to anyone and  the beach is nearly empty in places that are far from parking lots.

The smoke has been terrible again this year.  Our air quality went into the "very unhealthy' range.  I suspect that the air is always worse than we are told it is too.   The type of people who sit on the board of our clean air agency do not inspire any confidence that they are looking out for anything other than big polluting industries.

There was no food in the house and I was getting low on dog biscuits (what I call my mayday ration bars) so I stopped at the grocery store just South of Aberdeen.  I landed a wedding photo gig last month so I actually had a little bit of jingle.  I lashed out and spent $20.00 on breakfast and lunch.

We arrived at Twin Harbors and I shared hot deli meat balls with Sage, that was our breakfast. She had no trouble helping me eat breakfast.

I enjoy playing Pokemon Go and Draconius go while doing long walks, so pack a USB battery with me.  I forgot to pack a battery today though, so I had to use the huge spare USB battery that I keep in my car instead.  The big battery is heavy but still, my load was pretty light for a beach hike.

All I packed was lunch, a coat, a pstyle and a headlamp.   We walked all the way in to Westport this time.  I've been having a hell of a time falling asleep at night since my depression of last month has ended.  I wanted to be able to sleep the next day without having to take a sleeping pill.  Aprazolam to be exact.  That stuff is addictive and I took it for five days straight just to get some sleep.  I needed a day without it.

There was some sort of event and Westport with vendors on the street selling stuff that I don't need. I did not look at the booths, instead I headed straight to the museum and its picnic tables.  But I was thirsty and had to pee. I thought the museum had bathrooms, but the sign said no public bathrooms and there was a fee to get in and I had Sage.   So I got some water for my bottle from their faucet and   Sage got a nice drink at the magical self refilling dog water faucet.  After that we headed to the "woods" to have lunch.

I walked into the light house park looking for woods and road that I could see on my maps.  I found an old road that was over grown.  I was a bit worried about ticks but I went down the old road anyway, then I broke to the right to stay closer to my intended path.  I never did find a nice patch of woods, it was mostly grass and brush.  I found a good enough spot to at least sit and each my peaches that I bought in Aberdeen.  From my rest spot I could hear the ocean really loud and I figured that beach would be the best place for my actual lunch break.

So I headed down to the beach.  The really nice beach just north of the surfers jetty.  I was in luck, the beach was empty so I got both solitude and ocean waves for lunch.  I was not in the best mood for most of the day, but the ocean always helps a bit.  I did not remember to take many photos due to my strange mood.

For the walk back I stayed on the paved path as long as I could.  I was getting tired and the path takes less energy to walk on than the sand.  We finally finished our hike at about 7pm and I was pretty tired.  I'm sure Sage was tired too.  We went about 10.5 miles with half of it being beach walking and about a mile of mild brush crashing.