Olympic National Park

Hurricane Ridge

Pulling up the map on my phone is always a little funny as week by week we are in completely different places and it was fun to see us way over on the tip of the West side of the US when it feels like just a short bit ago we were way over on the East.

Two weeks ago we dedicated a week to exploring Olympic National Park, little did we know that if you want to do it right, a LOT of time would have to be dedicated as the park is huge! We stayed in Port Angeles at the KOA and found ourselves with a great view of the mountains which was fun as typically we are in gorgeous places, but surrounded by trees or campers that don't let us really see things unless we walk to a spot or get out and explore. We also met up with a family that is out living life on the road for 6 weeks together and the kids hit it off with their girls. After they left, the campground was still crawling with kids, so any and all of our downtime at home was spent building bike jumps, renting crazy bikes, or playing soccer.

View from our dining room

In Olympic National Park we were able to hike to Marymere Falls, explore Lake Crescent, hike to Sol Duc Falls, sit in the hot springs, bike along the rails to trails, and my favorite, hike to the top of Hurricane Ridge. I think when the boys are a bit older we'd like to go back and tackle some of the larger hikes that bring you to beautiful glacier lakes, but as they are 6 and 7 we were not heading out for the hilly 14 mile hikes with them...yet. Hiking with the family will be hands down one of my favorite memories of these trips, and I am sure that as time passes I won't even remember Oliver's questions of when we will be done and the bloody nose I accidentally gave him as he tried to give me a wedgie hiking down from Sol Duc will someday be a memory he can laugh at, maybe. In all seriousness though, something about the hikes brings out a chatty side in the family and we find ourselves yammering away like we are old friends who haven't seen one another in years. The views are often breathtaking and ever changing as we head from grasslands to rain forests and I can't get enough of them.

Family Portrait 2015

Friends at Hurricane Ridge

Hanging loose at Marym

Back home we were "occasional" hikers. The boys and I will often venture out with our good friends for a fun weekend hike and one summer I tried to start a hiking club for all of our toddlers which was marginally successful, but if people are going to peg my name to something it would often be on a cup of coffee and a book. Though I have no intention of giving those up, Chris and I have said that we are going to make a conscious effort to get out and hike more as a family when we are home because with views to be seen, how can we not?

We were due to leave on Sunday, but we had decided to leave Saturday to drive around the West side and see the Hoh Rainforest. Then, on Wednesday an old friend of Chris' let us know that if we could, we should make an effort to get out to Shi Shi beach. Being the flexible crew that we are, we packed up and headed out Friday night to make that happen. The drive was beautiful and along the coast of the Juan du Fuca Strait. There is a road approx. 20 miles that takes you in and out of the area of Shi Shi, the Makah Reservation. We pulled into our campsite and arrived to a sunset that my iphone nor my photography skills are up to capturing. It was so pretty that the people in the 10 campsites at the place were completely silent and lined up along the fence, all with a camera in hand trying to capture something that could come close to the beauty that the sky had on display. 

That night a little rain storm popped up along with some rain. We woke and the clouds parted for about 2 hours which had us carrying our oatmeal and coffee down to the beach to turn in circles at the beauty of this place. As the clouds came back in we packed it up as we had to head South. Driving through the town, the place was in chaos. The wind and rain were lashing. Tree debris and port a potty doors were flying across the street. Coolers were moving down the sidewalks as if they had legs. We kept waiting for a power line to come down, but they stayed put while we were there. As we drove to the narrow road that would take us back to where we needed to be, we kept our eyes out for branches lying across the road and soon enough we came to an impassable object, a huge tree that by our estimation had fallen less than a minute before our arrival as the car that had just passed us was not stopped. Thank our lucky stars! The next hour and a half were spent directing traffic, helping clear tree branches, getting rained on and occasionally checking on the children who were sequestered to the truck. We finally made it through and we were off to the sunny skies of Portland.