Cape will show you the Graveyard of the Pacific

Cape Disappointment State Park and the Columbia River Maritime Museum hosting the Graveyard of the Pacific Weekend Saturday and Sunday at locations in the Ilwaco-Astoria area.

Activities include a sea shanty camp, maritime programs and music, ranger talks and exhibits.

The Columbia River bar area earned the name “Graveyard of the Pacific” after more than 2,000 vessels met their end where the river meets the Pacific Ocean.

In Washington’s four corners

There is little doubt Washington is a recreation paradise. With a state that covers 66,582 square miles from the Pacific Ocean to the Palouse, from the border with Canada to the Columbia River, there are a myriad places to play.

You can climb to the top of the state on 14,411-foot Mount Rainier, fish for steelhead on legendary Olympic Peninsula rivers, ride the rapids of the Wenatchee River and fish for monster rainbow trout on the upper Columbia River in the shadow of the Canadian border.

But what about the far-flung corners of the Evergreen State?

Celebration at trail’s end

When all the hoopla about the 200th anniversary of Lewis and Clark’s expedition began 10 years ago, there was talk of a national pilgrimage of tourists who would follow the explorers’ footsteps, wallets open and spreading dollars from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean.

The Lewis and Clark bicentennial was going to be a tourism bonanza, filling motels, restaurants, gift shops and campgrounds.

Historian Stephen Ambrose, dressed in a fringed buckskin jacket to promote “Undaunted Courage,” his best-selling 1996 book about the expedition, predicted “crowds beyond any of our imaginings.”

Explore other cultural avenues of the maritime tradition

Sure, they’re tall, and worth seeing as they sail in. But tall ships both past and present have also inspired some pretty cool art, song, drama, literature and science – and a lot of it is coming to the South Sound this week.

Here’s a guide to rounding out Tall Ships Tacoma week (and beyond) with cultural experiences worthy of any chantey-singing, Shakespeare-declaiming captain.

Go cheap: Best bang for your buck in South Sound

Cheap fun for kids... The clusters of moms and kids making their way along Broadway in downtown Tacoma can mean only one thing: It’s first Friday at the Children’s Museum of Tacoma.

Soon, strollers will be lined up bumper-to-bumper inside the museum which offers activities for children from infancy through early elementary school. Admission is free on the first Friday of the month.

Kristy Dorrough visited the museum on a first Friday with her two children, 4-year-old Dallin and 2-year-old Abby.