I asked myself the other day why I bother to write this blog. My travels and adventures are not any more interesting than other people's... in fact, from the traveling I've seen other people do recently on Facebook, mine are rather UNinteresting! Ha. If any of them are reading this... will you please blog??!! I want to hear all the details about how you visited nearly every national park in the US, or spent 6 weeks in Europe, or camped in 30 degree weather in Alaska near a glacier, or hiked Machu Picchu.... but anyway... I write mostly for myself (and my mom) so I don't forget the small details; plus, now that I'm back at home, painting the story of my trip is kind of like reliving it from my couch... and I like that. I cherish every trip I'm lucky enough to take even more now that vacation days are actually a real thing that I have to pay attention to (not to mention the budgeting).
This particular post chronicles the second half of the Washington trip. On the third day, we checked out of our hostel and had a lovely brunch at Vittles Bistro, were I got excited and ordered way too much food...
Brunch of champions!
After Vittles, we picked up our rental cars and started out trek to the Olympic Peninsula... here's a pro tip, never drive to the Olympic Peninsula during midday on a Saturday. This drive involves a ferry ride (where you drive your car onto the ferry and then drive off on the other side) and even though we got there around 1, we did not make the 1:20 ferry... there were too many cars ahead of us. So we had to sit around on the ferry docks for over an hour waiting for the next ferry :( and would you know, the lady in front of us had her battery die and people starting cutting ahead of us! Rude. We nosed our way back in just in time though. It's a pretty short ferry ride from Seattle to Bainbridge Island - just about 30 minutes. Once on the other side, it's a long, but gorgeous drive to Port Angeles. Port Angeles is pretty good location for your home base when staying in Olympic. It has every amenity, including nice restaurants and grocery stores, while being in pretty short proximity to a lot of what Olympic has to offer.
We used Airbnb to find a place to stay out in the park. The way Airbnb works is that just normal people can post their home and other people can stay in it. No, it's not crazy - CouchSurfing is crazy - Airbnb is legit and safe. There are plenty of options to rent an entire home to yourself, but we were trying to be cost effective, so we rented a room in a home on a goat and sheep farm :D The hosts sounded like really nice people so we just went for it. When we arrived - Adrienne and Jim (our hosts) had fresh baked cookies waiting for us! I knew I picked a good place. Haha. They were very busy because it was the week of the county fair and Jim was bringing the goats and sheep back and forth for the contests (you should have seen their piles of ribbons!).
On recommendation from Adrienne and Jim, we set out for Lake Crescent to meet Alec and Amanda for dinner at the Lake Crescent Lodge. You can choose to stay at this lodge... but you'll pay a lot of money for minimal amenities. It is location on beautiful Lake Crescent though... which is priceless. Before dinner, we did a really quick hike up to Marymere Falls. This hike is super short and can be done in about an hour.
Super cool footbridge on the way to the falls
Marymere Falls :)
So dinner at Lake Crescent Lodge was tasty but SO expensive. Adrienne told us it would be cheaper if we ordered food from the bar area because they had a different menu - this is not actually true. I guess they changed it since the last time they had done it. Better off just going into the actual restaurant, getting good service and trying to get a table with a lake view. This was a relatively simple dinner that ended up costing around $70 for two people. Kind of steep... typical tourist spot scams... but at least the food was good and the beer was cold :)
We slept like rocks the first night at the farm. The plan was to get up early to go to Hoh National Rainforest and Sol Duc Falls. We woke up to freshly baked scones which we ended up taking to go (along with leftover cookies) to eat in the car on the way. So delicious.
In hindsight, these two hikes should not have been done on the same day. They look like they're really close together... until you realize that you have to drive around a mountain to get from Sol Duc to Hoh Rainforest. The Sol Duc hike is really pretty and quite short. The falls were so gorgeous that I had to wonder... if this is what they look like during a drought, this whole place must be magnificent when it actually rains as much as it's supposed to.
Sol Duc Falls :)
I love to do this to Andy :P Remaking our Neuschwanstein bridge photo
More falls
Hanging out in the middle of the creek
One of my favorite things to do is sit in on rocks with water rushing on both sides of me
Andy's balance act :P
After Sol Duc, it's a long drive to Hoh National Rainforest. We stopped at the Hungry Bear Cafe that is right off the highway, just before you get to Forks, WA (whose claim to fame is being the setting for the Twilight movies/books). This cafe... was interesting.... haha. It was mostly filled with (I'm guessing) loggers on their lunch break. It is run by an older couple who run their business at their own pace... which is pretty slow :P Food was fine, though. No complaints, basic American fare. Actually, I take that back, my one complaint was the lodge across the street that was flying a confederate flag with the word REDNECK across it. Embarrassing... what state am I in again?!
Hungry Bear!
These forests were probably the biggest indication of the drought that we've seen since we've been here. I remember looking at the pictures on google images and thinking that they were just so lush with all the mosses covering the trees... this is true in reality, but reality was a lot less lush and a little more dry than the pictures showed. The river along the river trail had a huge dry island in the middle of it, where I assume there should be water flowing. Regardless of these factors, Hoh National Rainforest is simply breath taking. The Hall of Mosses is the first hike that anyone should do when visiting here. It is a more of a stroll, really, and it's so popular that there are people and tour groups everywhere.
Hall of Mosses - I loved this tree
The sunlight shined through the forest in perfect beams that were impossible to capture on camera
To get away from all the hustle and bustle, we set out on the 17 mile loop along the river. Obviously we had no intention of doing all 17 miles. You need a permit to do the whole thing/set up camp, etc. Every step you take on this trail is gorgeous and if you pause, you can hear the sound of the river rushing next to you. A couple spots on the section that we took of this trail let you go down to the water.... SO COLD. so cold. Haha.
The trail head for the River Trail
Love this tree!
Love this river and those mountains... I just love everything
You can really see how dry the river is in these two pictures
I'm guessing the water would normally fill all the way to the greenery on the other side.
Gorgeous Rainforest
It was a long drive back to Port Angeles after this hike. Olympic has a highway that runs along the edge and the main attractions bring off far off the highway and into the dense forests. It takes a while to get from place to place... we got used to saying "oh that's about an hour away" for nearly everything we wanted to do :P Overall, it's so hard to believe that all this natural beauty exists in the world when I'm stuck working in Illinois. Then when I go back to my job, all these places keep on existing and keep on being beautiful without me being there :-/ I guess my only real solution to that is to keep traveling and keep finding more beautiful places. Last year, I thought Norway was the most beautiful place I've ever been.... maybe it still is, but damn is it a close call!
Back in town, we found a fantastic sounding gastro pub in Port Angeles that we decided to try. Dinner was delicious and definitely beat the Hungry Bear Cafe. Ha :) Perfect way to end the first night.
