Letters from the Lighthouse: Travel Edition: Olympic Peninsula

I have no idea why I didn't post last year's Gramma Camp which was held in Newport, Oregon. It was wonderful!! So this was our second Gramma Camp and I thought Eva would enjoy seeing some things on the Olympic Peninsula. It had been a long time since I'd been over there, so I was pretty excited also. (July 1-6, 2019)

Leaving for Gramma Camp!

Eva getting settled into her bedroom at our rental house

The Olympic Peninsula is huge with a national park right smack in the middle. No roads are allowed to go through the National Park - go into it but not through it, which means if you are on one side of the park and want to see something on the other side, it's a long drive. We mostly hung out on the north of the peninsula. Our home base was in Port Angeles, directly across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Victoria, B.C., Canada.

Our first day of "camp" was a rainy day, so we stayed in, watched movies, made soap, and played games.

Since we spent one day indoors, we knew we had to squeeze a lot of our activities into the remaining 4 days. We did just that. On Wednesday, July 3rd, we wanted to see the very northwestern tip of Washington State so headed out on our 2 hour drive. The road hugged the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and it was windy and roller-coaster like. Eva had her tablet and her book with her, but I think we spent most of the time playing hangman! Since I was driving and Eva was in the back seat, I just guessed letters until I had all the words!

Finally, we arrived in Neah Bay. We found this little "shack" called "Calvin's Crab House" and of course I was excited. It literally a shack, built on to the front of someone's house. Crab was available, "seasonally," and the rest of the food was fried . . . except the french fries which were supposed to be fried but they were the soggiest potato sticks I've ever had. Eva and I both looked at each other and said, "no way." Thank goodness we had lots of car snacks with us.

Cool little area to sit looking over Neah Bay

Neah Bay is a very small town on the Makah Indian reservation. There is not much to this small town. Twin industries of fishing and tourism keep the town alive. The Makah Museum is a big draw for tourists. We stopped here to eat and to buy a pass to be on tribal property to go out to the point - Cape Flattery.

We drove up to the parking lot, about 30 minutes from Neah Bay, and then went on our first hike of Gramma Camp - Cape Flattery Trail, a 1.6 mile round trip, "easy" hike. This was my first "hike" since knee replacement surgery so I was a little wary. But I really wanted to go out to the very tip. The pictures I had seen of it were so beautiful. And we had a really pretty, blue sky day. And to add to the anticipation, the Cape Flattery Lighthouse can be seen across the water, on Tatoosh Island. At the point, the Strait of Juan de Fuca meets up with the Pacific Ocean, so the weather is always changing. We were so lucky!!

At the beginning of the trail, a Native American man was carving walking sticks for the hikers. He told us that his 95 year old blind mother helped with the beads and feathers that were tied around the top of the sticks. He let anyone take one and if they wanted to keep the walking stick after the hike he showed us where we could make a donation of $5 or $10. Eva and I both grabbed a stick and headed on our way.

She is a great little hiker

We made it!! At the very tip - the furthest northwestern point of the lower 48 states.

Cape Flattery Lighthouse. Eva took this picture with her camera!!

Tatoosh Island & Cape Flattery Lighthouse

My favorite little hiking buddy.

On Thursday, July 4th, we had an evening boat cruise planned so we could watch the fireworks from the water, so we decided to have a "short" day out of doors. Like I mentioned early, if you want to see/do something in the National Park, and you're staying in Port Angeles, it's going to be a drive. Our shortest drive for this day was to the Sol Duc Falls trail, which runs behind the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort. It was a little over one hour to drive to the trail head; the trail is a 1.8 mile round trip, "easy" hike.

We took our hiking sticks with us and headed on down (and up) the trail. It was about the same as the Cape Flattery trail - ups, downs, boardwalks, rocks, roots - you know, normal hike stuff.

Eva couldn't wait to hug a big tree

She never met a big fallen spruce tree she didn't want to climb

Little stream along the trail

We have arrived! One more push over this bridge over the falls

Beautiful Sol Duc Falls

We walked down the hillside and over some rocks to get this close to the top of the falls.

Eva wanted to climb on the rocks at the top of the falls, which made Gramma a nervous wreck!

I took this picture so I could show my physical therapist the kind of hiking and climbing I did and
why my knee might be sore and swollen when I saw him next.

By the time we got home, we were both tired and it was getting cold and windy, so we opted out of the boat cruise. We saw spectacular fireworks last year in Newport, Oregon so I was afraid that Eva would be disappointed if we weren't able to see some from our deck.

When it got dark and the fireworks started, I couldn't see a thing and Eva started crying. But then we both started seeing some fireworks going off towards the Port Angeles pier . . . Whidbey Island . . . the spit of land out of Port Angeles which was right below the house we were in . . . and even the San Juan Islands! To me, they were not a big deal, but Eva got so very excited every time she saw any part of the fireworks. I had a great time watching her jump up and down, clapping with happiness that she was watching "real fireworks" (versus on TV).

Friday, July 5th, was our last full day to go exploring and we had yet to get to a place I promised to take Eva - the Hoh Rain Forest. We got a decent start in the morning because we had another two hour drive, around the north and west perimeter of Olympic National Park. The rain forest is in the park, but the road basically stops at the visitor center. On the 4th, when we went to Sol Duc Falls, we also entered the park, which meant paying the national park fee of $30, but the pass was good for 7 days. We made the most of it.

The roads around the park, and around the peninsula in general, are rural roads - one lane each way, windy, surrounded by beautiful scenery. It was a long drive to the rain forest entrance, and a long line waiting to get into the National Park (holiday, summer weekend), but once we were able to show our NP pass, we were waved through to another lane that allowed us to go right on in. Worth it!

There are at least three trails you can take from the Hoh Rain Forest Visitors Center. We chose the Hall of Mosses trail, which was almost a mile round trip. It was one gorgeous mile! Very easy hike (trail walk) and it was pretty busy on this day. Still worth it.

This is on the trail on the way to the Hall of Mosses

In the Hall of Mosses

I loved the way the roots of one tree were growing into a fallen tree.

It was fun teaching Eva about nurse logs. This was a great example.

On the road out of Olympic National Park. Beautiful, tall trees and so many shades of green!

With a long drive behind us, a mile hike just completed, and a long drive in front of us, we decided we would stop in Forks to have dinner. I explained to Eva that Twilght - vampire movies - took place in Forks, Washington. Then I had to explain a fictional story taking place in a real town. So, besides eating, we did a little Forks exploring.

Bella's truck from the Twilight movies

This phone booth used to be in the Hoh Rain Forest. Love the moss on top!

Eva did not know how to use this phone, and found the push button numbers quite interesting.

Forks is all about forestry.

Saturday morning we finished packing up and had to leave the house by 11:00. It really was a nice place for us to stay. We each had our own bedroom and bathroom, and there was a washer and dryer and dishwasher. The coolest thing was that the sofa turned into a sleeper, so we hung out on it most of the time, reading, playing on our tablets, and watching movies. I introduced Eva to Indiana Jones! And we had a resident visitor who greeted us when we arrived and was there to say goodbye the night before we left.

We had one last place to visit which was weather dependent. The skies were overcast in Port Angeles, but it appeared to be lightning up, so we headed up into the Olympic Mountains to Hurricane Ridge. On our way up, it started raining and the clouds were so low that we were driving through them. But once we got higher than the low clouds, we were greeted with a beautiful sight.