26 July ‘07
Thursday
It’s not often that we are out of bed and on the road before 8am, but today we were. The forecast was a mix of sun and high clouds so to make this a sightseeing day just made sense. First we had to get a full tank of gas in the toad and then it was off to Micky D’s for a quick Sausage Egg Mc Muffin…good travelin food. Our goal today was to travel as far north up the Olympic Peninsula as possible, see as many sights as we can, and get back before dark. We had wanted to get as far as Lake Ozette but soon found out it just wasn’t in the cards this time around (it’s always good to leave something behind so that you have something to come back for )
Thursday
It’s not often that we are out of bed and on the road before 8am, but today we were. The forecast was a mix of sun and high clouds so to make this a sightseeing day just made sense. First we had to get a full tank of gas in the toad and then it was off to Micky D’s for a quick Sausage Egg Mc Muffin…good travelin food. Our goal today was to travel as far north up the Olympic Peninsula as possible, see as many sights as we can, and get back before dark. We had wanted to get as far as Lake Ozette but soon found out it just wasn’t in the cards this time around (it’s always good to leave something behind so that you have something to come back for )
We traveled about 60 miles up the coast and made our first stop at South Beach. We drove the coast line for the first half hour before it turned inland. About three quarter’s hour later we were traveling the tree lined coast road to South Beach. Walking down the trail to the beach, through the tall fir and cedar trees, heavy ground cover of huge ferns, ended at the Quinault River as it flow into the Pacific Ocean. Fortunately this time of year the river isn’t flowing at capacity so we were able to carefully cross it and find our way down to the log strewn and rocky beach. The sand here is almost black, as are the small flat stones and the high rock pinnacles that dot the surf line. Some of these pinnacles are as high as 30 feet that dot the surf and then there are those that are off shore that must be 3 to 4 times that. We made 3 more stops further north until we ended up at La Push. La Push is an Indian fishing village on a beautiful point that also enjoys having more of those off shore pinnacles to draw the photographers and tourists besides the sport fisherman. Now it was time to head back, but not without a couple more incredible stops. Just south of Forks we make a left turn and head into the deep woods of the Hoh Rain Forest. We were lucky to be here on a sunny day, as they experience over 140 inches of rain a year, no wonder they call this a “rain forest”. We seem to be a little lucky in visiting areas like this by coming “off or in-between seasons”. Today wasn’t one of those days in the rain forest. The parking lot was filled to the brim. Fortunately we have a small toad so we found a “slot” to jockey into and we were set for our exploration. They have a number of walking and hiking trails ranging from ¾ mile to 18 miles, so we decided after a short deliberation that we were going to take the 1 ½ mile Spruce Nature Trail. After all, we had already hiked some of the Kalaloch and La Push trails and beaches all ready today, and we still had one more site to go to. We really enjoyed the Spruce trail, but for me it came in second compared to the Quinault Rain Forest trails we had taken earlier this week. Just 2 hours later we were looking for the worlds largest Red Cedar Tree.
This ride took us south down 101 again and then it was a left turn, up a hill, going right and left, onto a dirt road for a 5 miles and then finding this HUGE Red Cedar all by its self. The bark and most of the tree looked like it was dead, but at the top and some large branches near the top, there was enough green cedar foliage that you knew that this tree was indeed still doing very well.