Crescent Beach, WA

You want to know our favorite place to park our motor home? It’s up in Washington on the Strait of Juan de Fuca at Crescent Beach & RV Park. Their motto is “Surf, Sand, Serenity” and that’s for sure.
    The park doesn’t have a lot of amenities, but the view from the sites is to die for. It’s in a sheltered cove with a half-mile long beach and the strait practically at your doorstep. The area is heavily forested like many places in the northwest and deer often come down in the evening and browse. All of this makes for a very private place to just sit, admire the view, relax and take life easy.
    In the late 1800s, the area was called Port Crescent, which was envisioned as a deep-water harbor for ocean going vessels. Timber freighters were to be loaded with logs bound for foreign ports. Ambitious plans were conceived and put into operation. Port Crescent town site was laid out calling for 20,000 lots on a nearly square grid. They began dredging the harbor and almost immediately misfortune struck. A hidden reef was discovered, making it impossible to continue, so those plans were abandoned, however, the plan for the town continued. Soon there were two saloons, a couple hotels, stores and all the things that went into making a frontier town. Port Crescent continued to exist well into the 1920s, and then the town died when a fire swept through it. A careless beachcomber had left an unattended log burning on the beach. A fire on a sandy beach usually is of little concern, but unfortunately the sand was soaked with oil from the old oil house. The sand caught fire, which spread to the wharf, which spread to one of the hotels and before long all the other buildings were ablaze. Sadly today, all that is left is a postscript in the history books and the old cemetery next door to the RV park. Other than that, there is no trace of the old town.
    We‘ve spent many idyllic days there, looking out at the strait, watching big container ships and atomic submarines go by, flying my kite, strolling along the beach and venturing out, once in awhile, for some sightseeing. We haven’t been back there in a long time, but I’m sure it’s still pretty much the way we left it the last time. One family owns the whole area and they want to keep it the way they found it. And you know, in the case of Crescent Beach, I think that’s a really good idea?