camping at Nehalem Bay

We enjoyed our inaugural camping trip of 2020 this week, to Nehalem Bay State Park. We've been there a couple of times before and love it -- it's a quick trip (less than 2 hours), the campground is spacious and well-kept, and the park is only two miles from the sweet town of Manzanita (for emergency coffee, candy, and ice cream). The beach is a quick walk up and over the dunes from the campground and is wide open, usually deserted, and gorgeous. 

Things did not begin in the most auspicious fashion, however, as it was raining as we packed up the car, and raining for most of the drive to the coast. Steve shook his head as he waved us off. It continued to be a little damp and drizzly as we pulled into our campsite, and we were disappointed to find that this particular site did not have the usual tree shading and cover that most of the sites at Nehalem have. But we were undaunted and proceeded to set up our giant sun/repurposed for rain umbrella, and then took advantage of a break in the rain to set up the tent. Dinner was delayed by yet another rain shower, but we dashed out and cooked up some hot dogs during a brief break. Dinner was eaten inside the tent, to the sounds of rain falling outside. Even Jasper, our water-loving puppy, was defeated, curling up into a tight sad ball in a mound of blankets.

But then in the evening the rain stopped and we ventured out to the beach -- we ran up and down the dunes, laughing and shrieking and flinging ourselves into the sand, and enjoyed seeing Jasper's joy at the sand and waves.

Sibling wrestling/tackling.

It started to drizzle again, so we retreated back to the campsite, to sit under our umbrella and read our camping book - The Heroes Guide to Saving the Kingdom. We rarely read together, and even more rarely out loud, but it's become our camping tradition to pick a book and take turns reading chapters out loud. It makes the drive much more fun for me, and is a good activity for campfires and tent time. The kids played their favorite game - squirmy wormy - which involves sleeping bags and crashing into each other and a lot of giggling. And then we all went to sleep --