Finding Washington... One Scenic Drive at a Time

Who knew?  I have lived here pretty much my whole life, and still I find out things about this state that I didn't know.  Things I have never seen before, places I have never been, and stuff I didn't know existed.

Saturday Suzie and I hit the road in the fabulously-worn (but intrepid) Neon for yet another session in weekend photography.  It was a beautiful day.  Sunny for the most part, with blue skies and fluffy clouds.  This time our destination was the lower left corner of our state.

Who knew there was actually a covered bridge in our state?  Well there is, and we found it.  There might be more than one covered bridge (I'm not sure about that), but apparently there is only one you can actually drive through.  In other words, maybe it's the only one still standing.

It wasn't much to look at.  On the outside it was stark and bland-looking, and the inside looked like it was just built, but hey--it's a covered bridge and it's new to us.

We found ourselves at two lighthouses we had previously never visited, both of which you could walk right up to: Cape Disappointment, and North Head.  The two of them were conveniently only a few miles from each other too.  The first one (Cape Disappointment) was about a half mile hike from the parking area.

As we cruised the parking area we were assailed by signs we had seen many times before at other places we've stopped at during our excursions:  Signs that portrayed the evil possibility of a $99 fine for people that failed to display a Discover Pass in their car window.  In the past we had just parked outside the parking lots like so many other people, but at this one that was not really an option.  We opted to buy the pass this time.  We planned on just springing for a $10 one-day pass, but opted to go ahead and buy the year-long one for $30 instead.  I hate submitting to the rules of the governing bodies, but I have to admit--it makes you more relaxed (almost cocky?) doing it this way.  Anyway, back to the lighthouses.


The Cape Disappointment lighthouse was in very nice shape.  It was your perfect, stereotypical lighthouse that you see everywhere in books and magazines, complete with thick paint, worn concrete, and streaks of rust.  There were several others out on this beautiful day enjoying it too.  After all, it was a nice view of the ocean from up there!  On our way back to the parking lot we detoured down a different path--one that took us to the fancy-looking building we could see from the lighthouse (it was on a different bluff), called the Interpretive Center.  After we gave it a quick once over (it was closed so we couldn't go in) we noticed come old concrete structure low and behind it.  Our investigation revealed that we had walked right into the ruins of Fort Canby!  As close as it was to the Interpretive Center, I thought it was just more of the same building--like a basement.  It was very cool and I'm glad we didn't miss it.

After leaving the parking lot we headed down the road to find a beach spot to catch the sunset.  We had pretty much stopped thinking about lighthouses already when we came upon a small sign that said North Head Lighthouse on it.  Naturally, I took the hard left up the road, and again we found the signs reading Discovery Pass required.  Ha, we were covered!  No back-tracking to the nearby store to buy one this time.  The North Head lighthouse was almost the spitting image of the other one, but was perched in a much more interesting spot in my opinion.  It had that remote, lofty, lighthouse-look to it.  We were surprised to see a lady from our age group sitting on a bench above it playing a guitar too.  Photo op!  Alas, I didn't get a good one of her though.  The light was waning fast, so we got some nice, warm tones.  Good light for shooting lighthouses.

We made it to the beach in the little town of Seaview barely in time to catch the sun as it dipped below the horizon.  We had our Subway sandwich dinners while we watched the waves and seagulls from our car before hitting the road for our long return trip.  We did manage to snag some real nice, moody shots of sunset reflected off the surrounding swampy lands as we drove on.  It was a great finish to a day of exploration.