Olympic Peninsula
One of my favorite places in the whole darn world is the Olympic Peninsula. Last weekend we had the fun of circumnavigating the whole thing (or at least pretty much the whole thing minus the Bremerton back to Oly part - we chose instead to take the ferry for the last hour).
On night one, we camped at Lake Quinault at Falls Creek Campground and explored that area that we've both been to many times before. The next day was spent driving around Lake Quinault and stopping to explore some of the wilderness on the way. Next up it was a quick stop at Clayloch where 101 meets the Ocean. With the holiday weekend it was pretty packed, well for the Pacific in Washington.
After a short stop, we continued on to the Hoh River where we meet up with John, Espy, Jenn and Colby for a day by and in the river, which was pretty amazing. We camped that night and understood the complexities and challenges of a 6 person game of Chinese Checkers until darkness foiled our plans.
The next day we took off pretty early cause we have several places we wanted to see before returning to Seattle. We stopped in a little town called Beaver for breakfast. They had this enormous chainsaw carved sculpture of a Beaver in the front lawn of the restaurant. I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture to share with you. I really am.
Next up we drove the winding road past Crescent Lake (where there had been a 3 acre fire the night before, so we hoped it wasn't Kevin and Wendy who were responsible). Stopped at the Crescent Lake Lodge and the Olympic Park Institute to take in the scenery and surrounds. It was amazingly beautiful and calm there.
From there it was a pitstop at a gas station/espresso bar where the woman working told me with all seriousness and sincerity that she thought it was impossible to ice and americano. So I had to be the asshole to say, "well it's like a regular americano but with cold water instead of hot -- plus ice." I noted she had to get ice from the back room, so she probably spit in it, but it still tasted good. Later in the car, I felt that perhaps a better retort would have been: it's an Americano, not an Ameri-can't-o. I wonder if she would have thought that was funny. Probably not.
Our next plan was to hit a couple state parks on the east side of the Hood Canal. Just so happens that the day after we get back the Seattle Times runs an article on several of these parks. We stopped at Scenic Beach State Park and Kitsap Memorial State Park. Both had great views but were teaming with families, reunions, wedding guests, bikers and the like. They were really nice but we just sort of breezed through.
Later that day we took the ferry from Bremerton which looked like a ghost town on the holiday weekend, sure a ghost town with craploads of enormous battleships, but a ghost town none the less. It was an hour back to Seattle and a nice feeling to drive off the ferry and be home 10 minutes later.
I think I could spend an entire year on the peninsula, exploring all the little towns, hiking, following the rivers, but that'll have to wait for some other time.
On night one, we camped at Lake Quinault at Falls Creek Campground and explored that area that we've both been to many times before. The next day was spent driving around Lake Quinault and stopping to explore some of the wilderness on the way. Next up it was a quick stop at Clayloch where 101 meets the Ocean. With the holiday weekend it was pretty packed, well for the Pacific in Washington.
After a short stop, we continued on to the Hoh River where we meet up with John, Espy, Jenn and Colby for a day by and in the river, which was pretty amazing. We camped that night and understood the complexities and challenges of a 6 person game of Chinese Checkers until darkness foiled our plans.
The next day we took off pretty early cause we have several places we wanted to see before returning to Seattle. We stopped in a little town called Beaver for breakfast. They had this enormous chainsaw carved sculpture of a Beaver in the front lawn of the restaurant. I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture to share with you. I really am.
Next up we drove the winding road past Crescent Lake (where there had been a 3 acre fire the night before, so we hoped it wasn't Kevin and Wendy who were responsible). Stopped at the Crescent Lake Lodge and the Olympic Park Institute to take in the scenery and surrounds. It was amazingly beautiful and calm there.
From there it was a pitstop at a gas station/espresso bar where the woman working told me with all seriousness and sincerity that she thought it was impossible to ice and americano. So I had to be the asshole to say, "well it's like a regular americano but with cold water instead of hot -- plus ice." I noted she had to get ice from the back room, so she probably spit in it, but it still tasted good. Later in the car, I felt that perhaps a better retort would have been: it's an Americano, not an Ameri-can't-o. I wonder if she would have thought that was funny. Probably not.
Our next plan was to hit a couple state parks on the east side of the Hood Canal. Just so happens that the day after we get back the Seattle Times runs an article on several of these parks. We stopped at Scenic Beach State Park and Kitsap Memorial State Park. Both had great views but were teaming with families, reunions, wedding guests, bikers and the like. They were really nice but we just sort of breezed through.
Later that day we took the ferry from Bremerton which looked like a ghost town on the holiday weekend, sure a ghost town with craploads of enormous battleships, but a ghost town none the less. It was an hour back to Seattle and a nice feeling to drive off the ferry and be home 10 minutes later.
I think I could spend an entire year on the peninsula, exploring all the little towns, hiking, following the rivers, but that'll have to wait for some other time.
posted by Emma Rose @ 17:55
1 Comments:
At 9:54 PM,
Heather said…
Jealous! This sounds like a perfect weekend.
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