The Olympic Peninsula

The trip over to the Olympic Peninsula of Washington was not too arduous. We only had a 2.5 mile drive to the ferry dock and then a 7 mile drive from the ferry landing to the RV park. We didn't even hook up the car. Ellyn drove it and I took the RV. The way they loaded the ferry, the RV was way in the back and the car way up near the bow. But they unload in Port Angeles from the rear, so I was out early and Ellyn had to wait until nearly the end to get out. So, by the time she got to the RV park, I already had the RV set up. After lunch, we went up to Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park. It was partly cloudy but the mountains were almost all visible. It is quite a view of the Olympic mountain range from up there.

Day 2: Still in Port Angeles, we made another trip into the park up the Sol Duc River. We stopped off at the rapids where we hoped to see some salmon jumping and we were not disappointed. We saw several and even caught some of them on video and in still shots. It was fun. Then we went up to the end of the road where there was a short hike to the Sol Duc Falls. Then we went to the Sol Duc Hot Springs and relaxed for a couple hours before driving back to the RV.

Day 3: Back on the road down US 101 and over to the Washington coast. We stopped at Ruby Beach and went down to do some beach combing. The fog was in pretty thick and we could just make out the breakers near the shore. There were a lot of flat stones and people were skipping them in a tidal pool. As we were leaving and walking up the hill back to the RV, the fog started lifting. By the time we got to the top of the hill you could see several off shore islands and rocks. Then we made our last stop in the park at the Rain Forest. It was quite quiet there and a little hard to find, but it was an interesting short walk. Then we continued down to near Mount St. Helens.

Day 4: We spent this day at Johnston Ridge about 12 miles from the crater which was once Mount St. Helens. In the 31 years since it erupted, a lot of the surrounding vegetation has recovered. The area around the mountain was turned into a national park and is being allowed to regenerate naturally but the other land for miles around was replanted by the logging companies. These trees are now quite large and will be available for harvesting around 2025.

The next day we drove on to Cape Disappointment and the conclusion of our study of Lewis and Clark.