Sort of. It's a number of hours' drive to get to the Pacific (NOT a day outing), which is why we last went in the mid 90s. Puget Sound, is closer, 20+ minutes to Seattle if there's no traffic (ha!) -- but beaches tend to be an hour or more away. We have a number of smaller lakes nearby and until LoM had back problems (making it difficult to load/unload them from the car) we'd kayak there.
But I've never really completely liked the Pacific, having largely grown up around the Great Lakes. The Pacific *stinks* -- my first exposure, in 1964 with my California cousins, had me holding my nose miles inland before we got to the beaches. Even the fishy smell of Huron was mild by comparison. (Yah, I got over it, but I miss northern Lake Michigan.)
I agree.
The Great Lakes are one of God’s gifts to man.
When ya grow up around fresh water, I can imagine how getting that first ‘nose’ of salt air would be really, uh, different. Once you recognize it, though, you get to where you can catch the smell of the sea a few miles inland.