I spent the rainy Memorial Day weekend with my family in Birch Bay, WA., a small, infamous beach town about an hour south of the Canadian Border. Our family has been going to Birch Bay for generations. We meet there every August for the Graves Family Reunion (which happens to coincide nicely with crab season). To most outsiders Birch Bay is a pokey little town with a mish-mash of quaint beach cottages and large, impersonal condos, tacky t-shirt stands, and a rinky-dink water park better known as 'Wild n' Wet'. But to us, there is no place like it. (Pictured above: Some of the Graves Family circa 1960)
(The Seven Dwarfs Cabins - part of Davidson's Terrace and owned by my Great Grandfather and Grandmother)
(Great Grandma Eva outside of the Davidson's Terrace Gift Shop)
Like many beach towns, Birch Bay saw its hay-day in the 1950s and 60s, when it could boast such attractions as the Birch Bay Carnival, the Roller Rink, and Dance Hall. According to my mom, on summer holidays the cars were lined up, bumper to bumper, on the waterfront road.
(Aunt Susie with Davidson Terrace in the background, 1955).
