The Devil’s Punchbowl is at the northern end of Beverly Beach, so we planned to walk the beach to get there rather than try to park Usain in the busy area. That’s a great plan as long as you check the weather RADAR (we did), the rainstorm shows up on RADAR (it didn’t), and you estimate your walking time correctly (we didn’t). We did set out in our rain jackets, thinking we might need them on the way back.

Wet, wet, wet

Beach walks can be slow, and we were admiring the surfers at the end of the beach and generally not paying attention to the wall of rain we could actually see out over the ocean. It started to lightly rain while we were still at the Devil’s Punchbowl, and then picked up pretty good before we reached Usain. We were wet, wet, wet. My jacket did leave my underlying sweatshirt dry, but my shorts were soaked because rain water ran off the jacket right onto my pants. We managed to get dry, find places to hang the wet stuff, and had hot soup for lunch, which helped in the recovery. Pretty cold walk in the rain; feet and legs felt numb.

We may need to rethink our jacket plan for Ireland later this summer- gets rainy there, too.

Wine & Chowder

After a warming lunch and rest, we decided to drive back to the Devil’s Punchbowl. We found two parking lots and a restroom up near it because it is a state natural area. It’s where the surfers park. This time we were after a bottle of wine, having seen a wine-tasting and gift shop earlier in the day. A bottle of raspberry wine was purchased, then Tony moved us on to Mo’s Seafood & Chowder. In addition to a cup of chowder he has been craving, we ordered sweet potato fries. Nice afternoon snack!

Octopus Trees

A quick trip to the visitor center from Usain (X2 – first attempt ended in rain sending me back to van after I had left in sunshine) at the campground showed displays of life in the forest here. In the early logging days, tall tree stumps were left behind. As these decompose, they become nursery stumps and can give rise to “octopus” trees. Western hemlock and Sitka spruce love to grow on these leftover stumps. There are several examples around the campground. The roots grow down to the ground around the stump as the new trees grow up. It was good to read that explanation having noticed these weird trees.