With no fewer than 10 museums and interpretive centers, the rich history of Pacific County is on display. Three museums of the Raymond-South Bend area are detailed in ZEST in Cranberry Coast Part I. On the other side of Willapa Bay, even more sites deserve more than just a casual visit.

Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum in downtown Ilwaco is a true community effort. What do you do with a massive telephone utility building? After the Ilwaco utility gave the building to the City, the Ilwaco Heritage Museum was created. The space was renovated in 1991 and renamed the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum three years ago.

Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum

In 2008, Betsy Dillard, who had moved to the area from Missouri, came out of a five-year retirement to become Executive Director. Previously, director of the Contemporary Art Museum of St. Louis, she brought years of experience to her job. “Museums are my kind of touchstone,” she says.

Big institutions ask, what makes a museum relevant? she says. “It didn’t have to be done here,” she says. “It is relevant because it started from a community base.” The building is used constantly by community groups including “the hookers” (rug makers), quilters, an art group, the American Legion and a bridge club which has been playing at the museum for 25 years. An exhibit of vintage bridge tablecloths chosen from a local private collection of 169 cloths will by on display until mid-July. The 20,000 square foot museum includes special space for rotating exhibits. Upcoming exhibits will include World War I posters and quilts.

The permanent collection, which numbers 15,000+ objects, includes a village by the sea, the 1880s Nahcotta train Pullman Palace car from the Ilwaco Railway & Navigation Company (“The Railroad that Ran by the Tide”), a 26-foot lifesaving surfboat and an Exploration Gallery focusing on the 18 days spent by the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery in present-day Pacific County. The mezzanine houses a research library and model Shumway Railway. Admission fee. Free on Thursdays. There are lots of details at the museum Web site.

The Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center is located high above the mouth of the Columbia and Cape Disappointment State Park. William Clark’s journal sums it up: “Ocian in View.”

Looking Out to Sea from the Interpretive Center

The views from the center are spectacular. Friendly interpretive staff like Aaron Webster are well-versed in the history of the area and the exhibits. A few items were part of the actual expedition including a whiskey flask, hatchet head and wooden box carved by Sacajawea.

Interpreting the Corps of Discovery

The award-winning film “Of Dreams and Discovery” is on view along with permanent and rotating exhibits. Two historic lighthouses—Cape Disappointment and North Head— can be explored. An added feature – the Discovery Trail, 15 miles of biking and walking paths from Ilwaco to Long Beach. Below the Interpretive Center, the waves crash at Waikiki Beach and the Confluence Project site at Cape Disappointment features Maya Lin’s basalt fish cleaning station. The Center is open daily. Admission fee. Details here.

Below the Interpretive Center and Lighthouse

More museums coming up including Fort Columbia State Park, World Kite Museum, the Cranberry Museum, Knappton Cove Heritage Center and Appelo Archives Center.

Isn’t it always the case that when you travel someplace new, you wish you had more time to spend there? We just discovered that in Glasgow (and Edinburgh and Inverness and…) but that’s another blog for another day. This is about Washington State’s scenic Cranberry Coast.

We spent four days there in mid-summer and pined for more. So we returned a month later for a camping trip with long-time friends, Mary and John Tyburski. Again, we were enchanted by the area. Cranberry Coast, Part I is here.

Westport Marina

Friday afternoon. Taking I-5 north, we make our ritual stop for milkshakes at the Dairy Barn in Chehalis (Exit 77). Cookie Dough and Hazelnut shakes in hands, we head west on SR6 through PeEll, which has what must be the world’s largest stop signs, and through Frances and Lebam—a town with a name to love. It’s backwards for Mabel.

We pass the Pacific County Fair in Menlo, hurrying on to Raymond, where we pick up SR105. We’re eager to get to our campsite before sundown at Twin Harbors Beach State Park.  Setting up a campsite in the dark is not my idea of fun and it’s raining so we are grateful for our snug tent camper. Our days of sleeping on the ground are over. Guess we are getting older…

Home Away From Home

What a multi-generational community we find! Park demographics include all ages, from infants to grandparents and a diverse, well-behaved canine population. We must have missed the memo that said “bring your dog.” Two doors down, so to speak, at least 30 high school girls (also well-behaved) are on a field trip and eating dinner under the world’s largest tarp.

Much later, two cars of very polite surfers from Port Orchard set up their tents next to ours in the dark. We save them from an imminent medical emergency by lending them our hatchet. Watching a barefoot surfer try to chop wood with machete is not a pretty picture.

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I love cranberries.  With about 30 percent of West Coast cranberry farms located along the Southwest Washington coast, it makes perfect sense that we have The Cranberry Coast to visit.

I thought this area could be easily explored in one trip. I was wrong. There is a LOT happening in this part of the state. This is Part I.

Thursday Afternoon and Evening
We leave Vancouver on a one of those frying, triple-digit July days. As we pull out of Chehalis on SR6, after our ritual stop at the Dairy Barn for milkshakes, the Wachovia clock reads 100 degrees. By the time we get to Raymond in Pacific County, less than an hour from I-5, we are down to a cool, marine 67 degrees. The Cranberry Coast is looking good already.

The Elegant Russell House

4 p.m. An Elegant Bed and Breakfast in “The Oyster Capital of the World” Our host Beverley warmly welcomes us at the historic Russell House Bed and Breakfast in South Bend. Russell House is a stunning 1891 Victorian home, built by John Russell as a 25th anniversary gift for his wife, overlooking South Bend and the Willapa River. Beverley has graciously agreed to store our tent camper and kayaks in the backyard while we are exploring the area. We settle in to the Bay Room with its turret window seat and spectacular view of the river.

6:30 p.m. Well-worn tavern, good beer, succulent oysters. Beverley recommends two diners in town for great oysters. We start with dinner at Chester Club and Oyster Bar, which more than one person points out has been written about in The New York Times. If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for us. A few older guys are hanging out at the bar, occasionally wandering out to smoke and greet a very popular dog in a pickup. When I taste my first oyster, I slap the table. It’s that good. Lightly battered and fried but not greasy. And it’s matched perfectly with Rogue’s Dead Guy Ale. I hope The New York Times was very, very kind to this bar. They deserve it.

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The Sunday New York Times features 36 Hours in… (Paris, Bangkok, Nairobi, fill in the blank) each week but has yet to spend 36 hours in a Southwest Washington community. This is the first in a series to do just that.

Vancouver’s Uptown Village feels like a small town center with way more to see, do and eat than 36 hours allows. But we tried to squeeze in a LOT during a HOT July weekend. Just a few blocks from our home, this historic business district of shops, restaurants, bars and a fine local museum is a great way to spend time. Out of towners will find the Briar Rose Inn within walking distance.

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