Cape Disappointment and Willapa

 The boys had Friday off of school and the weather forecast was decent, so I took my friend up on her idea for us to head down to Cape Disappointment.

The boys were not thrilled.  In fact, they kept telling me they were disappointed.  Get it?

Yeah, my kids can be smart alecks some times.

They were looking forward to sleeping in.  Hahahaha!  Not on my watch!

We arrived to cloudy skies and beautiful views.

Then they found then pre-WWI bunkers and all of a sudden they were not disappointed at all.  We actually had to extract them almost forcibly to check out the rest of the sights.

This sign kills me.  "Often seen here"  No kidding.

Our first short hike took us to Dead Man's Cove.  Gorgeous.  Not the best history (this where bodies would end up whenever someone fell off the cliffs in the area), but the kids had a great time.  The trail down was described to us by the kids as "an obstacle course", so Isaac, my friend, and I stayed up top.  

 Our next stop was lunch.  With seven hungry children, it was pretty much a necessity.  While we were chowing down, the park volunteers gave us the heads up on a trail with a lot of frogs along it.  Can't say no to frogs!

The trail also had a marvelous view.

Our "disappointed" group.

The next short hike took us to a pretty lighthouse.

Our final stop in the park was Waikiki beach.  Also beautiful, but it took quite a bit of climbing over driftwood and rocks to reach it.  Again, the adults and Isaac appreciated the view from afar.

Leaving the park we headed back home by way of Willapa National Wildlife Refuge.  We thought we could do a little hike and that it would be like Nisqually Wildlife Refuge.

We thought that because, at first, it looked like Nisqually.

Except with art.

And then we found the 2/3 mile loop trail and went straight up for about 4 miles.  Or, at least, that's how it felt!  The kids were pretty ticked because I had promised them a "walk" instead of a "hike" for their tired legs.

But it was a lovely hike for all of that.

I am so glad that we could get another Washington State adventure in even though school has started.  We'll try to do a few more before the weather completely deteriorates.