Day #30—Sequim/Port Angeles KOA, Olympic Peninsula, WA--Tuesday, June 21, 2011

The day dawned wonderfully dry and sunny with temps in the 60s. I took a photo of some of the Olympic mountains that we can see from our CG (below). The morning sun was on them and the clouds had not descended to cover them up.

After an oatmeal breakfast for both of us, we gathered lunch and snack supplies and drove up into the Olympic National Park to Hurricane Ridge, first stopping at the Visitor’s Center for a map . . . and a puppet raven that Sarah bought as a gift for me. It is a great hand puppet, and we’ve had fun talking to each other through it. Yesterday I bought her a black bear stuffed toy, so now we two “kids” have our play things. 

Add another national park to my list. This one, Jeff, you and I drove up to after our anniversary trip to Vancouver Island. We did it in August, however, so there was no snow at the top. In June there was still great banks of snow at the Visitor’s Center at the top and on the hills and near the parking lot. The road was closed just beyond the Visitor’s Center, so after buying a Birds of North America memory card game and two small field guides (Pacific Coast Berry Finder and Pacific Coast Tree Finder), we explored what we could and then descended to a warmer climate and drove to the beach at the Quileute Reservation in La Push.

Hurricane Ridge visitor's Center

Sarah viewing the mountains from the Visitor's Center

Huge snowbanks near the visitor's center

Internet photo; I lost many of the photos I took on Hurricane Ridge

One had to navigate a trail through a commercial area and down to the beach, but once there we found a great beach, piled with huge driftwood logs and trees. The stones it washed up were sanded smooth and oval, and we picked up a bagful of them, as well as some choice driftwood sticks --we are collecting driftwood so that I can make a driftwood coat rack for Lucy. We sat on a big log and ate our lunch of cheese and crackers followed by a chocolate muffin we’d bought up at Hurricane Ridge.

Quileute Reservation from the air (Internet photo of course)

Log where we sat to eat our sandwiches

On our way back under Storm King Mountain and around the west side of Lake Crescent, we stopped at The Hungry Bear Café for a cup of coffee. The cafe was part of the Hungry Bear Cafe,

Motel, and RV Park in Beaver, Washington. We sat up to the counter on high stools. The woman behind the counter was quietly pleasant and told us that her son made the giant pies we could see in her pie safe. We decided to share a slice of Bumbleberry Pie ala mode. We were the only people in the place and the woman behind the counter let us take pix of the huge delicious looking pies before cutting ours, her back to us. When she turned around she had a quarter of the pie on the plate with two big scoops of vanilla ice cream. Yum! we thought.  

Yuk! we learned. The coffee was good but the pie’s berry filling was an inch thick solid glutinous mass. At one point I looked at Sarah who was earnestly sawing at the crust, which was worthy of a hacksaw. I whispered to her: “Put a foot on it and hold it down.” She actually bent her fork trying to cut the pie. The woman was standing opposite looking at us, anxiously waiting for us to exclaim over our first bite, and her young granddaughter was sitting with us, so we dared not say anything until we reached the car. Then we turned to each other and said: “That was the WORST pie I’ve never eaten.” 

As we drove down the road we decided that the son made his pies with a cement mixer and we discussed his concrete and mortar concoctions. We imagined the woman yelling into the kitchen to her son after we left: “Hey hon. Just got rid of another one of them pies. Remind me to get ya some more QuickCrete tomorrow!” 

Not far down the road was Marymere Falls. We parked and hiked back to it on a beautiful trail. The trees in this forest were giant Douglas Firs, Pacific Yews, Grand Firs, Pacific Silver Fir, Western Hemlock, Sitka Spruce, and Western Redcedar. Many of the trees were covered in star moss and Spanish moss; Forget-me-nots and Mayapple grew under the trees. The trail crossed a bridge and then crossed another bridge made of a single log. Then it wound up several levels of stairs and trails before coming out opposite the falls. We took each other’s pix and then climbed to a higher vantage point before taking the loop trail back to the river and walking through the tunnel under the road to our car. This was my third time at Marymere Falls. Jess and I hiked back to it on our coast bicycle ride, and Jeff and I stopped here also on our anniversary trip. This trip has definitely been one of waterfalls . . . and rocks, and sand.

On the trail to the falls

Posing on some tangled roots on the trail to the falls. We are both in sandals, but I am in sandals because I left my trail shoes at Sarah's by mistake (duh!). Had to wear sandals, generally with socks, everywhere. At least I had my inserts and so staved off another bout of tendonitis.

The single log bridge across the prosaically named Brian River

Some of the roads, streams, and towns on the peninsula have odd names: “Humptulips,” “Kitchen Dick Road,” “Its a Creek,” etc. The small town of Joyce is no exception: “Entering Joyce” and on leaving this little town, “Please Re-Joyce.” And there are some names which the mind automatically transposes letters: “Harting Farms,” and “Sunny Farms" being two examples. 

Speaking of that last, when we got to the turnoff for our campsite, we kept going to Sunny Farms, a vegetable and fruit market off 101 that we’d seen coming in and been told about by the KOA host. Here we loaded up on fresh fruit and veggies. Sarah cooks dinners as a trade-off for my driving all day, and this night she cooked spaghetti with clam sauce and prepared a great tossed salad with baby spinach and spring greens, avocado, tomato, and cucumber. We drank a couple of glasses of wine to celebrate the ending of a great day and then hustled the dishes up to the dish cleaning sinks and got into the hot tub for a long fantastic soak and massage. 

We thought to return to the cabin for a round of the bird memory card game, but were too tired so were in bed by 10 PM.