(Photos courtesy of Washington State Digital Archives)

When you live near an ocean, as most Washingtonians do, you can’t help yourself but go to the beach now and then. People visit the ocean to walk along the beach, play in the sand, dig clams, or just sit back and watch the waves and hear them crash onto the shore.

With summer almost over, you might want to head down to the coast and visit a beach before the weather returns to our default setting of rain, rain and more rain. To help get you in the mood, here are some classic beach photos found in our Digital Archives.

The top photo, taken in the 1950s, shows a Chevy parked above an unidentified beach. The middle shot is a postcard of Ruby Beach and Abbey Island, just off the Olympic coast. These two images are found in the the State Library Photograph Collection, 1851-1990. This collection includes more than 5,000 images of various subjects related to Washington’s history, people, geography and economic development.

The bottom photo, taken around 1960, features a woman looking out to sea while leaning on some rocks along the Olympic coast. That shot is found in the General Subjects Photograph Collection, 1845-2005.  Nearly 2,000 images of subjects related to Washington’s history, people, politics, agriculture, towns, logging, industry and buildings are found here.

If you want a free copy of any of the Digital Archives photos, just click on the photo link and once the photo appears, right click it so you can save, copy, e-mail or use the image as a desktop background.