Westport, Westhaven and Grayland Beach

Westport is a cute little beach town and while it’s small, you can find a number of activities to keep you busy. You can shop at a few local stores or eat lunch while enjoying views of the port and ships and sailboats nearby, walk the boardwalk at the port, walk the beach, surf or boogie board, visit the museum and lighthouse, go charter fishing or walk the paved dune trail.

On this visit, I enjoyed taking photos when the waves were willing to offer me a photo opportunity and Jozee enjoyed the beach by the bay, where she found nice sand she especially enjoyed digging in. 

When she was ready to relax, she enjoyed people watching...

Or letting the wind run through her ears.

We’ve been to Westport about every other year and a few years ago we even went charter fishing, which was a fun experience. Of course, dogs aren’t allowed and this was before we had Jozee. Given the fact that we had visited Westport often, where we always visited the port, the shops and museum and explored the beach along the bay, we were surprised during our last trip to discover we hadn’t visited all that Westport had to offer when it came to beaches. 

When we were ready to explore some more, we continued to walk west on the beach and up into and over the dunes. Once we reached the top, we were welcomed by the most spectacular sight…the ocean! 

We hadn’t realized that Westhaven State Park was located in this area or that it would give us access to the ocean and a beautiful surfers’ beach. That’s why we explore…and also why we should look at our maps more often.

The area of the beach on the ocean side was beautiful and during our visit the weather was perfect, which is a treat for the Washington coast. Jozee met a number of dog-lovers and other dogs as we trekked over the large dune to get to the beach. This visit was pre-Covid when Jozee would receive attention from a number of people we’d meet along the way who didn’t mind chatting for a few minutes.

Once we made it down to the beach, Jozee enjoyed watching all the activity between kids playing and visitors swimming or surfing.

We could have played at this beach all day, but we wanted to get a visit in at Grayland Beach before heading home because we hadn’t yet visited that beach. 

On the way there, we visited the campground at Grayland State Park and it was a nice find. We like to check out the local campgrounds near areas we enjoy visiting, in case we’d like to stay there, and this campground ticked a lot of boxes. They even had yurts to rent. It is definitely a park we wouldn’t mind camping at someday.

We arrived at Grayland Beach to discover it was much like Ocean Shores or Pacific Beach. There were a couple of kite vendors selling cute wind socks and other items and we enjoyed browsing for a bit while we decided whether or not to head home. It wasn't difficult to decide. The beautiful day was turning into a nice evening, which was the deciding factor, so we spent the rest of the day relaxing as we waited for the sun to go down.

We ended the day thankful to have enjoyed beautiful weather on our coast while we explored old haunts, as well as new.

Ike Kinswa State Park

Jozee as a wee one, just shy of 6 months

Have you ever visited an area multiple times and not bother to explore the surrounding areas? 

That’s just the case with us when it came to Mayfield Lake, located near Mossyrock in Lewis County. We would always end up at Mayfield Lake Park, more likely because it was easy access off of Hwy 12 for a day on the lake, especially if we were boating.

We’d explore the shores somewhat when boating while heading out on whatever excursion or activity was planned that day, but that was about it.

Until we introduced Jozee to the family and I got it in my head that we were going to do things differently with her than with our other dogs. We were going to get out with her more often and we were going to EXPLORE!

Ike Kinswa SP & Mayfield Lake

Now, in our defense, we always had multiple dogs, usually 3 or 4 at a time and they were big dogs so getting out with them to see the sights just wasn’t an easy task. On top of that, one of them in particular was very large, very protective and she didn’t play well with others. For anyone reading this who is just now contemplating what type of dog they might like to get, please take into account your lifestyle and the time and ability you’ll have to properly train and spend time with your new pet. If I knew then what I know now, I would have looked into early training not only for her, but also for myself.

Fast forward to today and we still have one of our large dogs but she’s up there in age (almost 11 years young) and doesn’t like to get out unless it’s on our property. Yes, there are dogs who don’t enjoy car rides! But Jozee is quite the opposite. She loves car rides. She loves just the idea that we’re going someplace. And she loves exploring, whether it’s in a familiar area or a brand-new spot.

Trail at Ike Kinswa SP

I guess we’re lucky Jozee likes car rides and meeting people, because what would have happened if I’d gotten it in my head to explore more only to discover she got car sick and was scared of new people?

Thankfully, that’s not the case.

So, back to the lake. Jozee was still pretty young, about six months old, the first time we decided to head out to Mayfield one beautiful day in May of last year. We thought we’d venture out and try a new park and we scored big time with our choice when we took a detour on State Route 122 in order to visit Ike Kinswa State Park.

The park had plenty of shaded parking, easy access to the shore, well-maintained trails and beautiful views on both sides of the shoreline. The fact that you had two shorelines to choose from was great; you could choose between more sun or more shade, calmer water or lapping waves formed by nearby boats. The beach areas had a lot of bigger rocks, so we had to stay vigilant, but it didn’t take away from Jozee’s fun. The real test was my overprotective mommy instincts when I realized how quickly the water dropped from a foot to…I didn’t even want to venture a guess. I just wasn’t brave enough to allow her to explore the deep beyond and she thankfully didn’t seem to want to go anywhere her feet couldn’t touch.

I had Jozee on a tight leash, just in case
she did decide to brave the deep part

Given Jozee’s young age, the easy trail walk was great and we explored the whole area, except for the swimming beach which doesn’t allow dogs. Other than that, this park was very dog friendly. Exploring the campground was enjoyable too because the campsites were all very nice and the cabins nearby the swimming area were a great addition. We made a game of choosing our favorite campsite if we were to stay there and it was very difficult; like looking for the perfect Christmas tree, only to find yet another perfect tree in the next batch.

Enjoying some shade

We enjoyed this park so much we returned a few months later in the summer and it has become our new favorite go-to whenever we visit Mayfield Lake.

In Jozee's book, it was a good day