47th Stop - Ruby Beach, WA

Blog Post #58 - Written March 20, 2026

Stay: September 2, 2025

I felt kind of bad making us travel on our 9th wedding anniversary.  Especially since we were not actually going to our destination, but to a one night stop.  So I tried to make it up to Gary by finding a fun pit stop.  Thank goodness Ruby Beach was well worth the stop.

We climbed down a staircase and got our first glimpse at the coastline.  Stunning blue water with large rocks in the water.  And all along the beach is driftwood.  But not your average driftwood.  Entire Spruce, Cedar, and Hemlock tree trunks, completely bleached, covered the shore.  We finished the hike down to the beach and climbed over and under and around the vast complex of logs.  

As we progressed through the the detritus, we started noticing structures that others had built out of the wood.  Gary decided he was going to spend his day building the biggest, tallest lean-to of them all!  We all hauled massive trunks over and around to his construction site.  The boys loved helping out, but eventually disappeared into another structure, building their own beaver lodge, beaver and all.  But the highlight was a sweet couple who asked me to take their picture under Gary's lovely building. It's probably all over Insta now haha ;)

Not Gary's lean-to. Just an example of one of the existing forts

Z and Q peeking out of their beaver lodge

Pirates defending their ill-gotten treasure! 

Construction progress pic. Gary picked the widest short log as his main support and the biggest, longest log he could lift for his main beam.

Our cute anniversary pic under Gary's massive driftwood creation.

D also disappeared a few times. First to raid our snack bag we had hidden in the shade of one of the teepees; and then to take a nap, tucked under our towels, fast asleep.

 

The beach also had flat colorful rocks, so I spent some time making rock designs in the sand as Z and Gary went swimming in the semi warm waters.

Once we tired of building, we decided to check out the giant rocks.  As we got closer, we heard shouts of excitement that there was a sea otter at the next outcrop.  So Gary ran off with Z and Q, and I snagged D on my shoulders and ran after them.  Sure enough, there was a beautiful sea otter feasting in the waters.  There was also an obnoxious sea bird pestering the otter and his scraps.  We loved watching it dive below, but eventually D got bored and decided to try out her sand swimming techniques.  

The tide was starting to come in, but Gary and the boys had found some sea stars along the edge of the rock cropping, so we quickly climbed out to check them out.  We also found a ton of sea anemone. Gary found some sort of seaweed attached to the home of some massive snapping barnacle things.  It was crazy!

 

 

We were so sad to leave, but we had to keep driving to our campground in Cosmopolis, WA.  We stayed at the River Run RV Park and walked / rode our bikes down the path along the river to a nearby Chinese restaurant to celebrate our anniversary, eating out with 3 young children, how relaxing and romantic!