Sunday, January 4, 2009

Grayland/Westport, WA - early August

The Docks in Westport

After touring the Sea Spray Motel, we wandered around Grayland a bit, visiting the overflowing and excellent antique store across the street, and chatting with the gentleman that owned the grocery store. Heading north, we noticed a greenhouse, and stopped, partially because we saw that they sold Science Diet dog food, which we feed our dogs, and partially because we love greenery, and wanted to see what kinds of local plants were on offer. After leaving the greenhouse, we realized that we'd seen about all there was to see in Grayland, and decided to head up to Westport for dinner.
Westport, WA

Westport was a fun little city, and a dramatic change in feel from Grayland. Grayland felt very much like a little beachfront town. The kind of place that is just waiting on the verge for something to happen, but also like the kind of place that doesn't want to do anything to make it happen, kind of quiant, but isolated. Westport is a fishing town, and has a lot more of a feel for tourism, with a great little section of shops and restaurants, and docks rather than beaches. They were also just starting to get some "Big business" tourism in, with the building of some big condos and resort style places. One thing we found kind of odd and a bit off-setting was that in every place we stopped, if they asked why we were in town and we told them we were looking at property, they immediately recommended a realtor or had property to sell themselves! One lady even had flyers ready that she handed out to us.
New Development off the port side!

We ate at the Half Moon Bay Bar & Grill, which we had assumed was going to be a bit more of a down and dirty bar, and ended up being a fairly "nice" restaurant. The food was good, though not as good as the dives we'd eaten in previously, and the help also argued with us, upon requesting a refill of my beverage that they didn't carry Dr Pepper, and that I must have mistaken the Root Beer in my first glass... not something anyone that's ever tasted the two is likely to do... We spent a nice evening strolling around Westport, in good spirits, and feeling pretty hopeful about the trip out. We'd spent a good amount of money on gas for the trip, and for one as shotgun as it was, we were worried that it would be for naught. Luckily, it wouldn't be, but not for any of the reasons we hoped! As night fell, we headed for home, hoping to make it a good distance before sleep took us, and our ride became our bed...

2 comments:

Steve at Random said...

Kris, I'm enjoying your posts about the travels. I went to southern Oregon's coast about a dozen years ago. I took a boat trip up the Umatilla River from the Coast through the coastal mountain range. It was beautiful. However, we ate a place along the coast and the waitress had a drip of sweat on the end of her nose that dripped into my "oven baked gouda pasta", which turned out to be macaroni and cheese. You don't forget meals like that -- $25 for macaronia and cheese with a fancy name and a drip of perspiration.

Steve at Random said...

I think I got my rivers wrong...now I'm thinking it was Umpqua River as it was in southern Oregon. Memory is not the first to go, but it's up there.