The Pacific Coast: Washington

Roche Harbor, San Juan Island, Washington, 3/10/10

It was hard to say good-bye to our special cousins, Don and Doris Schuld, but League's Excellent Adventure was once again on the move. We finished up our laundry on Saturday morning, March 6, and headed north up Interstate 5. My cousin Don was his usual fun and generous self: he folded our dry laundry for us, and left a great red bandana in Gary's jeans. He also scattered peanut-granola bars in our laundry basket, and loaded us up with fabulous Hood River peaches, pears and apricots, and excellent chili. What a guy! He is very fond of trains, and has an enormous collection of train post cards. He mails them to friends and family, often reminding us of daylight savings time changes or, very thoughtfully, our birthdays.

We were heading toward Olympia, but first we had to cross the Columbia River into Washington. Here is the view from the highway bridge up the Columbia River with Mt. Hood in the background.

Shortly after you pass into Washington (our 40th state!) is the turnoff to go to the Mount St. Helen's Volcanic Monument Visitor Center. I think of Mount St. Helens as the volcano that has had the most eruptive effect in my lifetime in the US (perhaps not Alaska ... I don't know). But I do remember the reports from May 18, 1980, when a 5.1 magnitude earthquake shook Mount St. Helens triggering a massive explosion. I quote from the visitor's brochure: "The release of gases trapped inside the volcano sent 1,300 vertical feet of mountaintop rocketing outward to the north." Winds reached 670 miles per hour and temperatures 800 degrees Fahrenheit, which flattened 230 square miles of forest. "Fifty seven people were killed .... and the largest landslide in recorded history swept through the Toutle River Valley, choking pristine rivers and lakes with mud, ash and shattered timber, eradicating trout and salmon." The intervening years have seen further eruptions, as well as dome rebuilding. It is truly remarkable to see this big chunk of the mountain gone on the north side. This picture doesn't show that view (the road accesses the mountain from the west); it is a powerful sight!

The Visitor's Center was very interesting with beautiful exhibits explaining what happened that day in May, right afterwards and since. This time of year one can only go in as far as the Visitor's Center, but once the snow melts, exploration, camping, etc., resumes.

We turned off Interstate 5 at Olympia and were once again on US 101 (!) as it traveled along the west shore of the Hood Canal. We could see the peaks of the Cascades including Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Ranier, and Mt. Adams on our right, and the lovely Olympic Mountains guarding the Olympic Peninsula on our left. There's a reason so many people want to live in the Seattle/Puget Sound area! The picture on the right is across the Hood Canal looking northeast up toward the Puget Sound.

Our destination that evening was Port Townsend. Gary and I had taken a trip to this area to celebrate his 60th birthday. At that time I had scouted out what turned out to be a very nice Bed and Breakfast (you never really know until you get there!) in Port Townsend. As I assessed our RV park options this time, I thought that Point Hudson RV Park must be very close to that Commander's Beach House B & B ... it ended up being right adjacent! I didn't quite remember that there were RV's parked so close to the Commander's House, but Gary remembered it, and we think we might have said something like ... "We'll have to remember to come back here when we're on our big trip." Well, we didn't remember, but we got there anyway.

Here is the view out Buster's front window, as well as the plaque explaining some things about Point Hudson. It is right on the Strait of Juan de Fuca and is, really, a charming spot. Nearby Fort Flagler is the site where An Officer and a Gentleman (Richard Gere, Debra Winger) was filmed.

Sunday, March 7 was a down day. It was really nice because we didn't have to do laundry as we had done it at the Schulds. I worked on the blog, Gary puttered with fix-it items on Buster (always something to tweak), and Liz worked out A LOT on the Wii. We got the Wii as a family gift at Christmas time, and she has had fun doing boxing, marching as drum major, and improving her balance by sitting still and meditating! See Strait of Juan de Fuca outside her window!

On Monday, March 8, we ran into something that sometimes happens to us. We don't get as early a start as we should, and then we see we want to go farther than the day will allow. We did some school work in the morning, slept in a bit, and by the time we started our drive "to the Olympic Peninsula" it was after 1 pm. We don't really want to drive in the dark (what can you see?) and so by dusk we had only reached Forks, WA. We had driven along a lovely, huge lake, Lake Crescent (seen below from the north on the left and from the south the next day) and thought we would stay at the Lake Crescent Lodge for the night .... not open.

So we drove on, and even though we didn't have our pajamas or toothbrushes, we spent the night in Forks. We were eating supper at the pizza place, and on the table were laminated trivia questions from ..... TWILIGHT! For those of you who don't have teenage (or pre-teen girls), Twilight is a series of books about teen-agers and all their ups and downs complicated by the fact that the dreamy boy is a vampire. Two movies have been made, Twilight and New Moon, and apparently more are in the works. We hadn't let Liz watch these, as they sounded too scary, but she had been begging to ever since the second movie came out. So here we are wondering why there are all these trivia questions about this on our table and we figure it out: Twilight is SET in Forks, Washington. Subsequently we read that the author thought a brooding, gloomy, overcast, spooky kind of place would be right, and there is a lot of gloominess on the Olympic Peninsula. Anyway, we decided to explore Forks more the next day, probably on our way back to Port Townsend.

Tuesday, March 9 dawned in Forks, and it was only a little dreary. It was overcast and a little drizzly, but what else would one expect where you find a rain forest. After breakfast, we took a nice route (still on US 101 .... it crosses the north edge of the Olympic Peninsula, and goes south along the coast again!) and turned off into the Hoh Rain Forest. Huge Sitka Spruce and Cedar trees were seen. Can you imagine this spruce at over 270 feet tall!

Gary and Liz took a little hike and Liz wanted her photographic efforts duly recorded here. You can see the little mouse they saw (I actually can't believe she captured the little guy with the camera), an elk in the woods, and I wanted to show the interesting moss draped around.

We pressed on catching glimpses of mysterious coastline through the trees. I wanted to make it to Kalaloch, as south of there the road dips inland and away from the coast. Kalaloch, pronounced Clay-lock, is a lovely coastal village and, fortunately for us there was an Inn with a very nice dining room and we had the place all to ourselves with a table right by the window for our "luncheon" (to quote Gary). I actually remember stopping at the same spot, and browsing in the same gift store, on a driving trip I took by myself about 15 years ago. Here's the view on the right:

Unfortunately the views are not uniformly lovely. I remember being impressed by all the evidence of logging in the Olympic Peninsula when I made the previous driving trip. Some of it appears to have been done somewhat irresponsibly .... today there are signs indicating the 80+ year cycle of when it was last forested, re-planted, and when they predict recutting will take place.

At Kalaloch we turned around and retraced our steps. Liz couldn't wait to get back to Forks. I thought if we stopped at the Information Center we might find something interesting, and indeed we did. Liz had her picture taken with Edward, and we got a map directing us around town to all the notable spots including, from left to right, Bella's (Swan) house, the Forks High School, and the Cullen House where Edward lives with his parents, Dr. and Mrs. Carlisle Cullen.

We then, of course, made our way to Dazzled by Twilight, the HUGE souvenir store in Forks with more Twilight memorabilia that can be imagined.

Our purchases were modest, I believe, but Gary and I found it so ironic that after hearing Liz plead with us to let her see New Moon we, coincidentally landed in the middle Twilightdom and made our little girl SO very happy. I've since learned more about the books and aside from the objectionable vampire theme, there is little violence, overt sex, etc., that you would prefer to keep away from your children. So, she's reading the books!

The next day, Wednesday, March 10, was huge. We wanted to at least touch on the San Juan Islands (this is a survey tour, pretty much, after all), and I also wanted to connect with my nephew Kenneth H. Abbott, III (after my father and brother)/Ken if at all possible. He works as a chemical dependency counselor for in-patients at Lakeside-Milam Treatment Center in Seattle. My nephew is 50 (I became an aunt at age 10), and he is a grandfather of two, with a third expected in June. More later.

So we set off early with Bella and crossed on the famous Puget Sound ferry system from Port Townsend to Whidby Island. Because they do this so much there, it was quite inexpensive .... less than $15 I think for the car, Gary, Liz and me. But it was also a short trip .... I think 30-40 minutes. We drove the length of Whidby Island from south to north, crossed the bridge at Deception Pass,

and got to the Ferry port at Anacortes for the 10:30 ferry to Friday Harbor, San Juan Island.

On the way we stopped at Lopez Island, and as we arrived at Friday Harbor we saw one of the huge ferries pushing on through the sound to another island. Liz took the down time on the ferry to catch up on some of her reading.

It was so nice to drive Bella off the ferry and have her at our disposal as we explored the island. Spring was all around us and we had a lovely day. We drove over to Roche Harbor and looked around the old Hotel de Haro. We had a good, casual lunch (tuna melt, patty melt) at the Lime Kiln Cafe. The Resort was formerly a company town of the Tacoma and Roche Harbor Lime Company; lime production was the major industry. I liked the picture of the boats in the harbor so much on this spring day that I chose it for the lead photo of this post.

We felt we had to catch the 3:30 ferry back to Anacortes in order to have any chance of connecting with Ken, my nephew that evening. As we were unfamiliar with ferry demand, we were in the car line for the ferry by 2:15. But we were able to leave the car and shop around the ferry dock for an hour or so. I got some great books at the local book store, and Liz and I got some cute Croc black flats on sale for $15 a pair.

We arrived in Anacortes about 4:30 and tried to figure our best way through/around Seattle and southeast to Issaquah, the home of Ken's daughter Stephanie and her family. This turned out to be quite a race to cover 90 miles (in "rush hour" traffic), find a place to eat, have dinner, and then drive 35 miles back northeast to Edmonds to catch a 9:20 ferry back to Kingston and then drive the final 40 miles back to Buster in Port Townsend. Whew! We did it, but it cut short our visit with Ken and Stephanie to way too short. Stephanie and her husband David Schlosser have two darling daughters, Annika and Isabella, and are expecting a boy (possibly to be named Luke) in June. They all seem to be doing well, but next time we'll plan a whole day in order to properly visit with so many nice people. We missed seeing David and girls (who didn't come out on a school night) due to our need to keep catching a ferry! Here's a picture taken after our quick dinner at the Red Robin!

I loved Port Townsend and scanned the real estate brochures there. This charmer, formerly a bed and breakfast, interested me with it's view over the harbor. Alas, there are VERY many charming places to picture oneself in.

Tomorrow we will begin the sprint south, and it looks like we will keep to our target of "seeing" the Pacific Coast, and returning to Ashland to pick up Sierra Jones for her spring break by March 12.

The Pacific ocean and US coastline are tremendous. They will remain a treasured part of our adventure.

Talk to you soon,

Julie, Gary and Liz