Our stay at Long Beach, WA Thousand Trails included the Independence Day weekend so we saw the campground at its fullest. And full it was. This campground is crowded at best with sites laid out like a parking lot for RVs. The water and sewer hookups are clustered for four hookups. Two of the campers have regular, driver’s side hookups and two must run their water and sewer hoses under the camper. Electric is better with each pedestal being shared by two campers. One plug is 50 amps and the other is 30 amps. First come gets first choice.

Again, our stay included the busy 4th of July weekend and that meant every site was full. The camper behind us was backed in within a foot of our back window. The camper to the right of us had their awning extended to about four feet of our 5th wheel and the camper to our left was just a bit farther away but our windows pretty much matched up.

Such an arraignment could be the recipe for a miserable campground stay but that would mainly be true if people were discourteous in some way. That wasn’t the case with our stay. Our “neighbors” were nice folks who just wanted to enjoy the campground and, while we would have preferred a bit more room, we felt we had an acceptably good stay given the circumstances. I confess that having arrived early and getting a “normal hook up” site with 50 amps electric probably added to that positive feeling.

The real draw here is the great Pacific beach which is just a five minute walk down a trail. We enjoyed the beach and the view of nearby Cape Disappointment very much, taking many walks along the beach. There’s also the paved Discovery Trail that runs near the water and provides great walking/biking opportunities.

The pool is quite small and we never tried it out but it got lots of use. We enjoyed good Verizon 4G and had no problem getting our satellite TV signal. I don’t know how often it is a problem, but mosquitoes were really bad from early evening till after dark.

We had one bad experience. As we returned to the park we found the gate, which normally has to be opened by punching in a code, standing open. I hesitated because I was concerned that it might close on me as I entered the park but then decided to drive on in. Because of that, I came into the park just a bit faster than I normally would drive, I’d estimate I was going eight mph rather than the speed limit of five. Before I could even get through the gate I heard someone yelling and looked to see a fellow waving at me. I waved back and then realized he was yelling in an angry way. I confess that it startled me and I speeded up to get away from him. It was then that I realized he was yelling “slow down, slow down.” I was away from him by then, so I looked at my speed and it was down to seven mph. I proceeded to my campsite and was surprised to see he was now chasing me with his golf cart. He then bawled me out for driving too fast. So far as I know this fellow has no credentials, at least he never identified himself as an employee, and has appointed himself to be keeper of the gate. Knowing I was somewhat guilty of driving faster than the five mph I decided to let it go. However, I’m sharing it here because I do think people who consider visiting this campground might want to warned about this apparently semi-permanent unofficial and rather belligerent traffic cop. Hopefully, he isn’t dangerous.

All in all, in spite of the above incident and the crowded camping situation I think we’d return to this campground. My advise is to avoid arriving on traditionally busy summer weekends and, if coming for a holiday arrive early and be prepared for close quarters.