Continuation

As I was saying on Sunday, there was one more concerning thing I wanted to talk about. That was centered around Long Beach, Washington. This is the lovely, old fashioned beach community where we have spent considerable time over the last 23 years.

It's famous for its lack of chain anything (except MacDonalds which snuck into town about 8-9 years ago), go-carts that really go, bumper cars and bumper boats (in the warmer times of year), lots of fun galleries and antique stores, secondhand book stores, some excellent restaurants, a number of large sculptures in the center of town, including the infamous fry skillet (for frying razor clams of course). We also don't want to forget the fact that there are 50 miles of drivable, uninterrupted beach, an old-fashioned boardwalk from one end of Long Beach to the other parallel to the beach, scooter rentals, clam digging at certain times of year, clam eating at all times of year, any number of festivals of all sorts throughout
the year, i.e. the annual, international kite festival, the Bluegrass festival, the garlic festival, the sand castle contest, the hot rod run, just to name a few.

Anyway, my concern is one of the shop owners who we have gotten to know over the years told us she will be closing her store at the end of the summer after 14 years of business because of the direction the "powers that be" have decided to take. Apparently, they are going to focus on trying to attract people to buy a condo in the community vs. attracting any tourists in the future. This means, of course, they are building many, many condos practically right on the beach or to be more accurate, right on the sand dunes. This makes me very sad because the beach as we've known it for so many years is going to come to an end. It will no longer be the
fun, old fashioned place to go relax, it will gradually upscale itself to keep all the condo people happy, losing its unique and special qualities.

If it weren't so far to commute, I'd give that city council or whatever they are a piece of my mind. I'm afraid we are eventually going to end up with a Cannon Beach, Washington. How very, very sad.