Pacific Beach State Park, WA, Yurt Camping Trip: Day 3

Pacific Beach State Park, Washington, Yurt Camping Trip, Day 3

Yurt Camping, March 10, 11, 12, 13 in 2025

Yurt Camping in the Pacific Northwest
Tips, Information, Locations, Experiences
Oregon and Washington
Off Season Camping
By Michael P. Garofalo

During this camping trip, I visited all these small towns and villages (along a 30 mile stretch of Washington road 109) along the southwestern Washington coast: Ocean Shores, Oyehut, Ocean City, Copalis Beach, Friday-Griggs State Park, Iron Springs, Ocean Grove, Seabrook, Pacific Beach, Moclips, Qui-nai-elt Village, and the Quinault Indian Nation town of Taholah. 

Along Highway 101, I visited: Olympia, Aberdeen, Hoquaim, Lake Quinault, Queets River, and Kalaloch. I ate dinners at the nearby Seabrook restaurants, and meals in Olympia, Hoquaim, Ocean Shores, and the Lake Quinault Lodge.

Generally, comfortable weather from 40-505 F, little wind, and intermittent light to moderate rain. Lovely cloudy and misty skies. Full moon at night.

A few dogwoods in bloom amidst the leafless deciduous branches and evergreen firs, cedars, spruces, and pines.

Internet Photographs:

Appearing in the Forest

Memaloose Spirits, Ghosts, the Undead
Nehalem Bay, Tillamook, Cape Lookout
Oregon, U.S. Highway 101

Memaloose Ghosts

By Michael Peter Garofalo

Yes, I've heard the Memaloose Ghosts
    in the Sitka swamps all talking,
and I've also left quickly in fear fast walking.
I've dreamt of skulls and skeletons,
graveyards of broken canoes,
Islands of the Dead,
   creepy Clatsop Chinook stories in my head.

In the Nehalem rain,
    with a deep dark dripping forest all around,
A Memaloose Ghost whispered to me
    in these hallowed grounds:

"The tide comes in, the tide goes out;
that's essential, Yes,
to What It's All About.
Your tide flows out, old man;
So it's now best to smile and shout, Yes,
and stroll bravely out."

"Saghili pee keekwillie chuck;
elip lekleh yes ahha,
Iktah Mitlite Konaway
Wake Sia Kopa.
Mika chuck chako
pee klatawa, oleman;
Alta elip klose ahha
tenas hehe pee hyas wawa
pee klata kopa lapea
skookum tum tum
klaghanie ahha."

- Words of the Memaloose Ghost in Her Chinook Jargon; translated above.

At the Edges of the West: U.S. Highway 101 and 1.
Memories of Pacific Coast Places
By Michael P. Garofalo

The poem above "Memaloose Ghosts," is one of dozens of my poems found on my webpage:

At the Edges of the West

https://www.egreenway.com/mpgss/shortpoemsmpg9sea2.htm

Travels on US Highway 101 and 1

Memories of Pacific Coast Places
West Coast Snapshots & Snippets
Delightful Coastal Spur Roads

Docu-Poem, Haiku, Short Poems, Photos,
Quatrians, Graphics, Concrete Poems

By Michael P. Garofalo

Vancouver, Washington

Vancouver Washington USA Poet Read Internationally

 

25 Steps and Beyond:

The Collected Works

By Mike Garofalo

Poetry, Anthologies, Indexes
Studies, Blog, Guides, Travel
Ethics, Art, Koans, Spirituality,
Philosophy, Quintains, Cascadia

 

US Highway 101 and Hwy 1

Quintains, Pentastich and Tanka Poems

Cuttings: Haiku, Senryu, Brief Verses

Tick-Tock Tractatus

The Gushen Grove Sonnets

Cantos of the Hands

Reviews of My Webpages

US Highway 99 and Interstate 5

Stepping Over Epiphanies

Daodejing: Indexes, Concordance, Anthology

A Fork in the Crypto Road

727 Riddles, Jokes, Brain Teasers

The Spirit of Gardening

Docu-Poem

Poetry in My Cloud Hands Blog

Haiku - North Sacramento Valley

Flowers in the Sky

Above the Fog

Biography: Mike Garofalo

At the Edges of the West, Volume 1

At the Edges of the West, Volume 2

Exhibits of TextArt

The Wreck Ahead Comes Into View

Cloud Hands Blog

How to Live a Good Life

Stuck in Some Concrete Poetry

The Raven Broke Open the Magical Clam

Pulling Onions: 1,000 One Liners

Four Days at Grayland Beach

Meetings with Master Chang San-Feng

25 Steps and Beyond Anthology

Subject Index to 1,975 Zen Koans (PDF)

Biography: Mike Garofalo

One Short of a Baker's Dozen

More Poetry by Mike Garofalo

Poetry Research

Interstate 5 and Hwy 99

Five Senses

Reviews of Poetry Books

Memories of Pacific Coast Places

One Old Daoist Druid's Final Journey

Uncle Mike's Cellphone Poetry Series

Fireplace Records Koan Collection

Brief Poems and Haiku

Epigrams, Quips, Sayings: 1,000 One Liners

Tao Te Ching: Concordance, Anthology

Zen Buddhist Koans: Research, Indexes

Blooming Onions Pulled from the Mind-Ground

Zen Poetry

Virtues and the Good Life

Villanelle Form Poems

Sonnet Form Studies

Quintain Poetry Research

Zen Koans: Subject Index

Sonnets in Quintains: 5252, 554, 555, 553

Biography: Mike Garofalo

Monthly Observations and Poetry

Green Way Research Index

Body-Mind-Somatics Arts

Couplets

Tai Chi Chuan and Qigong

Pentastich and Quintains

Neo-Pagan Spirituality Studies

Tanka and Quintain Poetry

Travel Poetry: CA, OR, WA, BC

Flowers

Meditations of a Gardener

Free Verse Poetry

Cuttings: Haiku and Tercets (1998-2026)

Transitions: Haiku and Tercets (2017-2026)

A Gift of Dried Garlic Flowers

Dialogues in the Renga Style

Fourfold Ways: Quatrains

Bog Posts - Poetry

Two Levels: Haibun Poetry

Tercets, Haiku, Epigrams

Doggerel Verses

Prose Poems

Works in Progress Notebook

Poetry for the Four Seasons

AI and Poetry

Texts PreSS Couve Publications

Tai Chi Chuan & Qigong

Concordance for the Tao Te Ching

The Bottom Line

Quintain Sonnets: 5252, 554, 555, 553

John Ashbery Studies

Emily Dickinson Studies

Tick-Tock Tractatus

Five Corners of Time

Slouching Into Incoherence

Northwest Native American Lore, Myths

Reviews, Kudos, Feedback, Praise, Cited

My Poetry Studies in 2026

Texts PreSS Couve Publications

Reading Wittgenstein

Zen Koans

 

Bundled Up - Quintains: Volume 1, 1 - 1,000

Bundled Up - Quintains: Volume 2, 1,000 - 1,500

Bundled Up - Quintains: Volume 3, 1,500 - 2,000

Bundled Up - Quintains: Volume 4, 2,000 - 2,500

Bundled Up - Quintains. Sonnets, Time: Volume 5, 2,500 - 3,000

Bundled Up - Quintains, Time, Sonnets: Volume 6, 3,000 - 3,500

Bundled Up - Quintains, Delight, Nature: Volume 7, 3,500 - 4,000

 

Bundled Up - Quintain Sonnets: 5252, 554, 555, 553

 

Quintain Poetry Research

Quintain Poetry Rhyme Schemes

Quintain Sonnet Forms

Quintain Syllable Counts

Bundled Up: Quintain Poetry Home

Poetry Research Bibliography

 

the scissors of my decisions

more to come ...

 

 

Mike Garofalo lives in Vancouver,
Orchards & Five Corners Neighborhoods,
Northeast Clark County, Washington State.

He is available for public readings
in Vancouver or Portland.

He writes, reads and studies Poetry.
His hobbies include: gardening,
writing, walking adventures,
yurt camping, reading, blogging,
Taijiquan, exploring the Northwest,
research studies, local trips,
and family activities.

He has been web publishing since
1998 at Green Way Research.

Mike is 80 years of age.
He has a calm, pleasant, and
friendly speaking voice.
He is a big tall elderly gent.

Best to send him email.

 

 

 

Michael Peter Garofalo (1946-) grew up in East Los Angeles, raied well by June and Big Mike, was educated in Catholic Schools, lived with two other brothers, and graduated (B.A., M.S.) from local public universities.

Married Blanche Karen Eubanks, served in the US Air Force, worked in and managed many City and Los Angeles County Public Libraries, raised two children, socialized, traveled, and learned. Retired as the Regional Administrator, East Region, Los Angeles County Public Library in 1998.

We moved to a rural 5 acre property in Red Bluff, in the North Sacramento Valley, CA. Webmaster since 1998. Worked part-time for the Corning School District (Technology and Media Services Manager, District Librarian, Grant Writer, and Webmaster); and as a yoga, Taijiquan, and fitness club instructor until 2016. Traveled extensively in Northern California, Oregon, and Washington.

We both retired, and we moved to Vancouver, WA, in 2017. From 2017 to 2026: reading, writing, gardening, harmonica playing, home chores, activities with children and grand-children, yurt camping, blogging, Tai Chi Chuan, exercises, traveling in the Northwest, walking, web publishing, poetry research and writing, photography, Northwest research, Nature mysticism, aesthetics, pragmatism, literary and rhetorical theory, and sports events.

 

 

 

25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works

At the Edges of the West
Highway 101 and Hwy 1 Docu-Poem

Cloud Hands Blog

 

 

 

Mike Garofalo's Internet Web Publishing
Objectives, Aims, and Policies:

Provide open access to people worldwide.
People can read my poetry and
research studies for free: 24/7.

Google translate drop-down menu included,
so you can read the machine AI translations
of all my poems into over 80 languages.
I sometimes read the translations of my
English poems into a Spanish version.

No advertising or pop-up ads on my webpages.
No cookies tracking. No email requests.
Offering no chapbooks or books of mine
    or from others to sell.

Since 2024, webpages are in CSS format
    and cellphone readable.


Since 2005, I have used my
Cloud Hands Blog for poetry posts,
many other topics, promoting others,
selling books.

I research and study poetry at my home.

In 2026, I will be carefully studying writers
from the San Francisco Renaissance Period
(1950-1980), Emily Dickinson,
Quintain Poetry, John Ashbery,
and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Editors and publishers who think my
poetry has commercial possibilities
for themselves are
encouraged to contact me.

I've been employed as a webmaster,
grant writer, and web publisher
since 1998.

Feedback, comments, reviews,
praise, or suggestions are welcome.

Text-PreSS Couve Publications
Free Online Poetry and Studies
By Mike Garofalo
Vancouver, Clark County, Washington
Text-PreSS Couve Email

 

I really appreciate positive feedback, reviews,
kudos, and encouragement about the value
of my free webpages. Send your comments to:
Text-PreSS Couve Email

This document was last edited, revised,
reformatted, added to, relinked,
changed, improved, or modified
by Mike Garofalo
on March 28, 2026.

 

Seashores of the Pacific Northwest

 

Low Tide at Heceta

Low Tide at Heceta

By Mike Garofalo

At the Edges of the West
Highway 101 and 1
Northwest Pacific Coast

Four Days in Grayland

25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works

Hecate in Mythology

Best Tidepools in Oregon

Heceta Head Lighthouse

"Heceta Head was a spot of frequent fishing and hunting by the American Indian tribes that populated the area. Heceta Head is part of the Siuslaw traditional lands, known in their language as ɫtúwɪs. They hunted sea lions in the area and gathered sea bird eggs from the offshore rocks. It was also the site of a legend—the Animal People built a great stone wall, which is now the cliffs, and tricked the Grizzly Bear brothers to their deaths there. In 1888, white settlers moved into the area and claimed 164 acres of the surrounding land."

25 Steps and Beyond:
The Collected Works of Mike Garofalo

Photos from the Internet and Facebook:

           

Seashore Life of the Northern Pacific Coast: An Illustrated Guide to Northern California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.  By Eugene N. Kozloff.  University of Washington, 1983, 378 pages.  A technical scientific presentation.

The New Beachcomber's Guide to the Pacific Northwest.  By J. Duane Sept. Harbor Publishing, 2019, 416 pages.

Seashore of the Pacific Northwest.  By Ian Sheldon.  Lone Pine, 1998, 192 pages.

The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans.  By Cynthia Barnett.  W.W. Norton, 2021, 432 pages.

                    

• Acorn and Gooseneck Barnacles
• Limpets
• California Mussels
• Hermit Crabs
• Chitons
• Sea Stars (more commonly known as Starfish)
• Sea Cucumbers
• Anemones
• Sea Slugs
• Turban Snails
• Purple Sea Urchins
• Various Fish Species
• Purple Shore Crabs
• Kelp and Sea Palms

       

Blackberry Vines at the Bandon Marsh

 

950.

Blackberry Stained Hands

Bullards Beach State Park
Bandon Marsh NWR
     Bandon, Oregon
     August 2025

 

 

Blackberry vines
     lined the edge
of the dry Bandon Marsh;
     not one single cloud
flying in the sky

Picking wild blackberries
along the Bandon Marsh;
seagulls splash dive
     in and out of the Coquille;
east of the 101 bridge.

Families picking
          wild blackberries
     for fresh pies;
slight breeze
across Bandon Marsh.

          hand picked
     fresh ripe berries
hand-fulls of black round morsels
     chugged down
sweet tart summer sun

plucking blackberries
sucking juice
fingers in my mouth—
humming
"numanumanumanuma"

blackberry juice
    dripping from my mouth
        down my shirt—
sweet memories
on the Tongue of the Mind

 

 

[Bandon, Oregon]

 

The Eucalyptus Trees at Tomales Bay

We laughed over dinner in the Village at Bodega Bay. The shrimp scampi and grilled asparagus, plated to perfection, tasty beyond belief, remembered to this day. Brothers and wives, six old carriers of fading memories, sat together chatting over wine and fancy local cheese.

From our comfortable hotel suites we gazed at the wind-surfers sliding around the quiet harbor today, heard children talking in the shade, walked up to vista points, smelled the salty spray, wondered about our futures fading fast day by day.

Talked about our surgeries, our children's escapades and failures, our trips to places faraway, our dead friends and family erased from time, and our petty habits that directed our minds.

The grassy hills, carpets of green, a few wildflowers of early spring, spread over smooth rounded mounds of earth bordering this quaint smallish bay.

We walked and talked, ruminated, reflected on what we once saw and what we missed. Since we all had worked, saved, invested, and retired, lived in California all our lives, in a peaceful time, our experiences reflected our conservative bourgeois lives.

We drove south along Highway 1, along the lush hills encasing narrow Tomales Bay. Forests of fragrant eucalyptus trees, dense, flaky barked, for miles and miles as far as one could see. Dead pointed arrow-tipped leaves spread thick beneath our booted feet. Eucalyptus seed pods, gnarled and round, twisted in our fingers fragrantly.

The shallow Tomales Bay was calm, subdued, and colored in shades of gray. Drivers in the traffic from Frisco, escaping city life, streamed steadily though these rural scenes, past hip cafes, and souvenir packed shops. Headed up the coast, kind of lost, but not, just pretending to be explorers or adventurers ... but they were not. Just folks with cash, like us, tourists on a weekend lark.

Below the slender 15 mile long Tomales Bay estuary, Deep Below, under miles of salty rocks, crawling slowly, pushing-pushing, inching along, invisible and real, the Immense San Andreas Fault. One side of the shallow bay moves northwest, the other side shifts south. If the San Andreas Fault faulted, split, rifted, strike-shifted, exploded, rock and rolled ... the earthquakes would send tsunami waves to the height of young Madrone trees, and slash Inverness, Marshall, and Point Reyes Stations to rubbled ground! Leaving broken houses, wrecked cars, rotting herring, salmon, eels, sturgeon, halibut, and human bits scattered all around. Always a disastrous possibility!

Yet, I did not worry, can't fret about every unpredictable or unknown threat. Just enjoyed eating a fine carnitas tamale and flirted with a Hot Tamale Lady in a Olema cafe; that's It! Little time to dwell on Death ... the inevitable ultimate Rift.

My brother and I gazed to the South, wistfully, at Sonoma State Beach, near where the Russian River empties down into the Pacific Sea. We were older, wiser, but listing steeply toward our ends from disease. Memories from 2019 ... crumbling.

 

 

This poem is one part of:

At the Edges of the West
Highway 101 and 1
Memories of Pacific Coast Places
By Mike Garofalo

25 Steps and Beyond: The Collected Works
By Mike Garofalo

Stepping Over Epiphanies

 Stepping Over Epiphanies

By Michael Peter Garofalo

Affecting all the molecules in me
the pull of the moon and sea
feeling the call to walk the shore
Smiled, opened the door

Tides and time sent signals to me
to step nimbly over epiphanies
seen flipped over in the turning sands
Surprised, opened my hands

Waiting for nobody but me
a fleck of cold fire
flung out on this fleck of space
Sang out, loved this place

Shore pines paint a background scene
short stubby crooked trees
swaying gently in the salty breeze
Unruffled, I found tranquility

Stunned by the crisp clean colors
savoring the scents of the sea
enchanted by the incessant singing surf
Awakened, calming reveries

Pointing to the ineffable realization of
insights known to me alone
erupted up from our sensory realities
Profound, not foreknown

Such awakenings come and go
sometimes fast or sometimes slow
unpredictable visions playing peekaboo
Pausing, not thinking too

Slogging up and down the dunes
breathing hard on Que
one step up, a half-step back
Stopping, quite a view

A romantic couple passes me
by on the thin path through sea grass;
we nod, mumble "hello", step aside,
Thinking, will love last

What I see is painted by me
created for free in a brain for me
sucked from the breasts of reality
Pondering, reality or illusory

I practiced outside today
the Practice of the Outside Way
I figured a a few things out
Understanding, what Place's say

Tip toeing over bull kelp strands
stepping on broken shells
avoiding the driftwood piles ever moving
Listening, a virtual foghorn knells

A friendly dog off-leash comes to me
seeking a gentle pat and pet
desiring a kind human face to see
Laughing, she was wet

My grand daughter and I once walked
beside an Oregon dune
not very long ago it seemed to us
Remembering, gone too soon

 

 

25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works
By Mike Garofalo

Highway 101 and 1
At the Edges of the West

Bundled Up: Quintains and Tanka Poetry

A Fork in the Crypto Road by Mike Garofalo

 

A Fork in the Crypto Road

By Michael Peter Garofalo

We stopped for coffee in Forks WA one day
on the way to Crescent Lake’s forest shade.
The barista smiled, polite, earned a tip.
We sipped and talked about Rips in Time,
splittings, divergences, separations between
Crypto-beings versus real creatures we can find.

Cryptozoology, not bitcom crypto schemes, but
plenty of amazing pseudo-science scuttlebutt.
Yes, Cryptids living by the Quillayute River
or by its incoming Bogachiel or Sol Duc streams.
Or, four Chupacabras living in La Push.
Or, Big Foot and Little Foot
      crossing Hwy 101 at dusk.

Forks pretends to host Vampires,
teenage blood suckers on the night prowl,
teenage Werewolves howling, running fast,
Humans afraid of these creatures’ wrath.

Human, not so human, called by the Night,
confused, resisting, teenagers losing the fight
against inner demons and lusty needs
and ordinary life with real human beings.

Many beings eat, fight and kill to survive,
wily, tricky, stealthy, with a hunter’s pride.
The Horned God has history on his side.
Hunger keeps us all on the Edge,
ready to amorally pounce from a hedge
and slaughter or harvest creatures just ahead.
We are all Vampires
rising from the dead. Its said,
Living and dying scenes
are sometimes seen in vivid Red.

Books and movies started it all,
now all Fork’s stores sell
    Vampire and Werewolf dolls.
Motel rooms are decorated in Twilight themes.
Crypto-Reality, fantasies, fictions,
    magical scenes.
Drawing thousands of titillated tourists here.
Happy Forkers counting more dollars there.

It is said that
Big Foot roams the nearby lush Hoh woods
seeking a lean Sasquatch Lady with big boobs.
She temporarily hides her alluring charms
from clumsy Big Foot’s fingers and arms,
Carrying a Sasquatch-Yeti baby in her arms.

Why do we often picture and portray
Big Foot as a lonely male, a hairy ugly guy,
a grumpy solitary fellow,
without a female, family, friend,
or clan at his side?

And, then we have Paul Bunyan, The Logger Man,
a Machine of a Man, with Babe, his Blue Ox,
dragging logs from the land; plundering
forests till their gone, then moving on.
Nowadays, from Quinault firs
to Humboldt coastal mountain pines,
diesel logging trucks packed full are the rule.
There's a huge statue of Paul the Lumberjack
his axe and Babe, in Requa-Klamath CA,
at the Trees of Mystery,
along Highway 101 to this very day.

One dreary winter day
I spotted Big Foot drinking coffee
with Paul Bunyan and Vampire Vlad
in a cozy Tillamook Starbucks Café
Nobody was fazed;
figuring,
just Hollywoody Cos-Play.

 

Slouching Towards Incoherence

 

Slouching Into Incoherence

By Mike Garofalo

Incoherent poems of word salads
mis-mashed onions and beets mixed
with an obscure metaphorical dressing of
vinegar and bile, croutons of confusion,
tomatoes of nonsense thrown in.
I can’t figure Robert Creely out:
or from CA: Philip Whalen or Larry Ferlinghetti either}
[or from NY: John Ashbery or e.e. cummings either]

Brief excursions on bouncing backroads
of wordy mud puddles of randomness

closed the brittle door on hinges of sounds

read out, read out louder,
rant, whisper, shout out,
the spoken word; ritual tails
wagging like memories lost

flocks of vocabulary typhoons
smashing, yelling, broken cocoons
bursting butterflies of spinning sounds

Read out, read out louder
in a dank smoky coffee house
Hip precursor of Hippie clout

However,
Both Sides: Then and Now.
Hip Zen or Square Zen.
Clear as Sky or Clear as Mud,
Coherent as winter Logic or Obscure as summer Fog;
Throughout the Golden Gate...

Jumping off the ground,
falling up Meanings; or,
standing up Clarity...
Hanging around San Francisco City:

"Coits Tower still screws the sky"
Gregory Corso freed St. Michael from Alcatraz
Moscone and Milk: justice denied
Rexroth translated Chinese verses
Maya Angelou Let the Caged Bird Sing
Jefferson Starship wandered into the White Rabbit's hole
Thomas Cleary translated Taoist prose
Alan Watt’s old houseboat was sold
LSD glasses clearly unclear besmirched
Robert Hass pruned apple trees in Olema
Deng Ming Dao's Scholar-Warrior arose
The Summer of Love amplified Hippie Fun
Edward Espe Brown baked bread in Zen Robes
PhD's from UCB and Stanford ruled the roost
Wendy Johnson gardened the Green Gulch grounds
Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco
Isaac Bonewit's magic arose from Neo-Druid lore
Mike McClure centered Beast Language INCANTATIONS
Silicon Valley kids coded new languages with Fortran lines
Amy Tan put SanFran Chinatown folks on the map
Allen Ginsberg’s Berkeley Sunflowers chanted
Steve Job's last words were "Wow"
Jerry Garcia lifted up the Grateful Dead
Philip Whalen helped the dying and bowed
Robert Creely gave a brief, succinct, convoluted scowl
David Brautigan went lingcod fishing in the Bay
Lawrence Ferlinghetti turned the lights on at City Lights
Eric Hoffer loaded boats and warned of True Believers
Zen Master Suzuki taught what Not to Think
UCB students sat-in & shouted out
Hitchhiking poets cried like clowns

Eyes of my Ears: Mystified
Beat poets died. City Lights sighed.

Befuddled by
some poet's words
repeating rereads
increased the blur.
No pearl in the oyster.

25 Steps and Beyond:
The Collected Works of Mike Garofalo

Pacific Beach State Park, WA, Yurt Camping Trip: Day 4

Pacific Beach State Park, Washington, Yurt Camping Trip, Day 4

Yurt Camping, March 10, 11, 12, 13 in 2025

Yurt Camping in the Pacific Northwest
Tips, Information, Locations, Experiences
Oregon and Washington
Off Season Camping
By Michael P. Garofalo

Drive home from Pacific Beach to Vancouver.

Stopped a the Black Lake Boulevard shopping complex and Capitol Mall. This is a few miles west of Olympia. I browsed the very large Barnes and Noble Bookstore, and the nearby Half-Price Books. Excellent meal at a Japanese restaurant next to the bookstores. Purchased $100 in books and magazines. 

Interstate 5 South to Vancouver was relatively uncrowded today. 

Saw four accidents this trip: overturned truck that lost all its load, overturned car, a serious fender bender, and a  dramatic house fire incident in Hoquiam with many fire trucks.

Home before 3 pm. Unpacked!

Pacific Beach State Park, WA, Yurt Camping Trip: Day 2

Pacific Beach State Park, Washington, Yurt Camping Trip, Day 3

Yurt Camping, March 10, 11, 12, 13 in 2025

Yurt Camping in the Pacific Northwest
Tips, Information, Locations, Experiences
Oregon and Washington
Off Season Camping
By Michael P. Garofalo

During this camping trip, I visited all these small towns and villages (along a 30 mile stretch of Washington road 109) along the southwestern Washington coast: Ocean Shores, Oyehut, Ocean City, Copalis Beach, Friday-Griggs State Park, Iron Springs, Ocean Grove, Seabrook, Pacific Beach, Moclips, Qui-nai-elt Village, and the Quinault Indian Nation town of Taholah. 

Along Highway 101, I visited: Olympia, Aberdeen, Hoquaim, Lake Quinault, Queets River, and Kalaloch. I ate dinners at the nearby Seabrook restaurants, and meals in Olympia, Hoquaim, Ocean Shores, and the Lake Quinault Lodge.

Generally, comfortable weather from 40-505 F, little wind, and intermittent light to moderate rain. Lovely cloudy and misty skies. Full moon at night.

A few dogwoods in bloom amidst the leafless deciduous branches and evergreen firs, cedars, spruces, and pines.