I miss all the fun weather

So while the Monkey & I were up on the central Washington coast this weekend a water spout/ tornado hit Lincoln City on the central Oregon Coast.  I forgot my camera but may get some pics of the event from my cousin (our family retreat, that is - not the tornado).  We had a wonderful time.  Good company, good food, good fun.  The Storm Gods blessed us with a narrow, 4 hour window of windless blue skies in between thunderstorms to beachcomb and see what the "giant" waves had brought in.  Unfortunately, no treasures were found.  :(  Nor any new slimy/fuzzy friends.  Unless you count the dead seagulls, which I don't.   We were at my cousin's cozy little cottage near Copalis Beach -  a tumbledown, forgotten little town that's kind of sad, really (to quote Bridget Jones) but delightful nevertheless.  There's a wonderful expanse of sandy beach with lots of small dunes - perfect for building sand castles.  And I'm told a state park/nature preserve (Griffith-Priday) to explore. If you're looking for a rustic coastal escape with your own stretch of desolate beach and complete absence of  tourist kitsch, this is your place.   It's also famous for razor clams.

Now if you're looking for the quintessential upscale, amenity-loaded, picturesquely perfect charming beach town, or if you're not lucky enough to have your own relation with a cottage in Copalis Beach, you can head 7 miles north to Seabrook, WA where developers are attempting to carve "A New Beach Town!" out of nothing and doing a fine job of it.  The brand-spanking new vacation houses, cabins and rentals are all kind of stacked on top of each other.  But it is absolutely adorable, built for walking/bicycling, and probably MOST important - very dog friendly.  Because seriously - what's a trip to the beach without kids and dogs?   If you're not quite up to forking out $400k + for a vacation home of your very own, they also have a great website for renting cottages at a very, very reasonable price. 

You can rent an entirely stocked (except for food), decked out 3 bed house with a hottub that sleeps 8 people for $150 a night in low season.  Fully equipped gourmet kitchen, internet, Xbox...loaner bikes in the garage.  If two families were to split that? There's an amazing vacation for the kids that's cheaper than staying at a Holiday Inn.  You don't have to find a pet sitter, or pay for expensive meals out.  Just throw whatever's in the freezer into a cooler, grab some staples from the pantry and go!

If Seabrook is a little too far there are two similar properties on the Central Oregon Coast: Olivia Beach in south Lincoln City (for the record, the tornado hit on the *north* end of town), and Bella Beach - a few miles further south, just north of Depoe Bay.  Don't let the twister scare you.  Absent some kind of "Day After Tomorrow" catastrophic abrupt climate change event, the odds of another one hitting the same vicinity in our lifetime is about nil.