So travel along
with me, will you? We left on a Saturday
morning for the Washington Coast. Many
people get confused, because when you think of any seaside state, you think of
it as coast and inland. My home has a
view of salt water… and many think it’s coastal. It isn’t.
I live in the sound, and my view is actually the Guemes Channel. Actually, let me borrow this here image from this site,
slightly edited for my ability to demonstrate, and I’ll show you.
Okay, so we left our little corner of the world for the
Washington Coast. We love to stay at
Ocean City State Park. Last year we
stopped there to visit family, and had a great experience with the park, so
this year we decided to return. We spent
two nights there this year, in order to better spend some time getting to know
the place better.
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| Leaving home |
The drive out to Ocean City is really one of my favorite parts:
a ferry ride, miles and miles of nothing but forest, a few small “blink and you
miss it” towns here and there, and more wild flowers than I think I’ve ever
seen in a drive anywhere else. It’s
about 2 ½ hours from our house, and a fantastic way to start off any of our
south-bound by the coast trips.
We arrived to find our site wonderfully large, and quite
private. In fact, the surrounding
vegetation so effectively screened us in, that we thought our spot was going to
be too small, until we stepped out of the car and looked around. We had plenty of space for two tents, all of
our gear, all five of our camp chairs, and still extra run around space for the
kids. The Princess loves to use nearly
any open floor space as a dance floor…
Our first night in was mostly spent setting up camp, and
going out shopping for some of the many forgotten things like condiments. (Oopsie….)
We did foil pouch dinners and roasted marshmallows, and then hit the
beach. Last time we were here, we didn’t
try to walk to the beach from the camp.
Instead we drove into Ocean Shores and onto the beach with the car. I had no idea, though I do believe our family
out there may have made mention, what a hike it was. First a short trek through the woods, then
this prairie like area, up a hill, and FINALLY you get the sand and the waves
and the sunshine. The Hubster and I sat
on a piece of driftwood and let the kids go crazy in the sand with their
buckets and their tools.
Now, ever since I learned that Washington State has its very
own rainforest (and a subsequent lesson in the difference between tropical and
temperate rainforests) I’ve wanted to go visit.
In all actuality, I only thought we had one; the famous Hoh Rainforest. Turns out that there are at least three. Doesn’t matter, I’ve spent nearly 20 years
wanting to set foot in the Hoh. So we
spent day two with the plan to drive over 2 hours each way to get my little big
self to the Hoh. It was a perfectly warm,
sunshine filled day… and we got a late start.
*facepalm* We had a wide detour
to pick up some essentials I had forgotten and we couldn’t get locally which
also derailed us for another couple of hours.
(Way to go, Mom.) By the time we
got to the Quinault Rainforest, we weren’t sure we’d make it as far as the
Hoh.
We did, however, stop in the Quinault for our picnic lunch,
and a ½ mile trail hike through a section of the forest. I am still fascinated with how much moss is
all over the place in these things.
Loaded back up in the car and continued north, singing along
with The Monkees, Bob Segar, and James Taylor…. cracking jokes along the way of
vampire hunting because we kept seeing signs to Forks. We hit an odd foggy patch, just about 25
miles out of Forks, with no cell signal, and no blue sky, and the jokes got
even more frequent. ;-) We got our laughs at the beaches with the
ever so creative names… “Beach 1”, “Beach 2”, “Beach 3”, “Beach 4” and “Beach 5”. Suddenly the sky opened up again, turned
bright blue, the temps rose, and we discovered we were very, very close to the
Hoh road... and made our turn as soon as we reached it.
I was in tears when we passed the sign saying we had entered
the Hoh Rainforest. It’s hard to
explain, but as silly as it was, the simple fact that for nearly 20 years this
was something I’d wanted to do but kept eluding me, and here I was, finally
where I’d waited so long to be… just had me all emotional. It was late in the day, so we knew we weren’t
going to do much, but the simple fact that I was finally there… yeah.
As we pulled in, we saw a Ranger trying to help an Asian family
with their car, so we stopped to help.
Their hatchback on their rented mini-van wasn’t closing. The latch completely malfunctioned. Luckily for them, we had picked up an extra
clothesline, which we happily handed over and tied their hatch to a
backseat. I stood watching Robert secure
the hatch, when one of the guys introduced himself to me… Carl out of Vancouver
BC. (Okay, so the idea of an Asian guy
named Carl cracked me up.) He was
explaining to me that their luck had been terrible, they had wrecked their own
car the day before, and now this rental was broken.
Sadly we got there so late that the interpretive center was
closed… and the weather was too hot to leave the dog in the car to hike the “Hall
of Mosses” that I still want to get the chance to do, as no pets are allowed on
those trails, but we still were thrilled to be there, and are already planning
a better organized trip back.
That evening was a lovely night of putting our feet up
around the campfire, a couple cold brews for the “adults”, and the night I
learned how to use my Dutch oven to make cornbread. We all slept like rocks, and made our preparations
to strike camp the next day, bound for Oregon.
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