Wednesday, August 6 – Ecola State Park, bike ride, Hotel in Rockaway Beach with pizza and sunset

In the morning we go to Ecola State Park, the first state park with a traffic jam to get in. We would soon find out why. First, we go to the public parking lot and enjoy the view of Cannon Beach from this side of the bay, pretty beautiful but a bit clowdy still.

Then we hike about an hour north to Indian Beach. By now the clouds are gone, the sky is blue, and the shoreline is just amazing. While Selma and Markus (apparently a bit bored of beaches) stay on the beach on a log, Erik and Klaus scramble on and climb up some rocks on a tiny peninsula, from where you can see the beach on both sides, the other side completely empty and again with an gorgeous shoreline.

Then all of a sudden, at first it seems like just another rock in the water, I say: “Hey, it must be a whale”. Just in time for Erik to turn his head and there it is, right in front of us a huge whale jumps out of the water! We grab our cameras, and indeed it comes back to stick his (or her?) head out of the water a couple of times, but no more jumps…

We run to get the other two to come sit on the rocks and have a clif bar. Erik starts his tradition of first dropping his clif bar down the rocks before eating it. We stay for another while, seems like forever, to enjoy the beautiful sky, water, beach and rocks. No more whales.

Then we walk over to the other beach and Klaus has the glorious idea of hiking straight up the hill to meet the trail. Turns out to be not a very good idea, and after about 1 hour of hiking through jungle, fern, slippery mud, animal poop and dead trees, Selma takes over the lead and we are on the trail in about one minute. I think it is not JUST because of her taking the lead, but everyone else agrees that next time she will go ahead from the beginning.

After that we go along the coast to a few more bays, one of them (Nehalem Bay State Park) serves us as a picnic spot and the boys and I go on a bike ride to the “Jetty”. Interesting ride, once again on a horse trail, about 2 miles, no ocean in sight. Then at the end there is a big pile of dead trees which of course we scramble over to get to the beach. And then back to the car. Quite exhausting.

Then we go on to try to find an empty RV place, but we are quite unfortunate, so we decide to try a motel in Rockaway Beach, a beatuful but not touristy community directly on a sand beach with two rocks in the water. The first motel has two rooms but not in the same building and regulations do not allow the kids to be alone. So she calls around and another hotel actually has a room for us, the suite. Bad luck! We take it and go there, just to find out that the door of the room does not open. The lady does not know how to reprogram the door and tells us that she can give us two normal rooms. Klaus of course wants to fix this, and after seeing that it is a Kaba lock tries to reprogram it – successfully of course. Thank you, Mr Miller!

We spend the evening at this suite, with direct view of the beach and the sunset. After that, we jump in the hot tub. Then Klaus and Erik jog over to the Pizza place to grab a Pizza. We end the day by watching a rather “interesting” movie about some musician and even Markus goes to bed before the movie ends. Beautiful day!

05. August – Bike Ride and Walk on the beach

In the morning, we talked to the lady with the lavender farm and played with her kid and his friends. After about three hours of running and playing Frisbee, we decided it was time to leave.

After a long drive, we stopped after the bridge over the Colombia River and rode our bikes through the town of Astoria. We also had desert at the Wet Dog Coffee – as usual too much.

Then we drove on to Cannon Beach, reserved a campground and took a walk along the beach, enjoying the sunset.

Monday, August 4 – Lake Quinault

Once more, we manage to get up early and decide to rent some kayaks for an hour.  This time, the kayaks are not as sophisticated as the ones we had in Tofino; you can only steer them with your paddle and you don´t have a wet-skirt.

Anyhow, Erik and I are sharing one while Markus and Klaus sit on another one. We go along the shore trying to spot some more bald eagles and we actually find one up on a tree! We also see some blue jays and a few fish jumping out of the water. I find kayaking in the sea is a lot more interesting because sea life is simply amazing: you have the seal, the kelp, the whales… here at the lake you can only hope to see some birds; however, on our way back I really enjoy the view of the mountains in the back ground and we pass some see-weeds beautifully floating on the water… a poem themselves.

We return the kayaks and take a short swim at the lake. Then we go to the visitor center and leave the park there to start the “Rain Forest Nature Trail loop”. It is an interpretive path which actually begins at the beautiful lodge, which by the way, is very fancy in its small mountain resort style.

The explanatory sings are well written and are very informative: we learn that geese and humming birds come here and make a stop on their migrating route; ospreys and bald-eagles are also home to the lake because they both love fish; from time to time swans can also be seen here.

We also learn about the flora and start discussing the different kinds of ferns: maiden hair, deer fern, sword fern… but there is one type which we cannot identify. The forest definitely looks like a temperate rainforest, club moss is hanging from the trees, we can see hemlocks, Sitka Spruce and Douglas firs and they are just amazingly tall and big.

At one point we see a sign warning from cougars. I prepare myself for the encounter and take a stone in one hand and a big fat stick to throw at the mountain cat in case we really come across!!!  You are supposed to make a lot of noise and make yourself look big. So Markus starts going on his toes and begins to sing which somehow seems to bother Erik! ;-)

Unfortunately, or should I say fortunately we do not see one single cougar but a lot of fallen trees due to a hurricane and another area of the forest where there was a big fire.

At the cascade falls we eat our lunch and keep walking to see the world´s largest Sitka spruce. This one is again by the lake and we reach it after walking for nearly four hours!

We enjoy the view of the lake and watch some geese in the afternoon sunlight. Then, we hike back to our car for another half an hour.

The drive to the lavender farm in Hoquiam, Washington takes us approximately an hour. I am kind of nervous because I think we were not really invited to go see these people we had met at the Hot-springs in Sol Duc, I mean, we do not even know their names…! but as usual Klaus is confident that it is going to be a lot of fun.

We get there and they are kind of surprised to see them but they invite us into their beautiful house  located next to the small field of lavender which –unfortunately- has already been cut back. We chat and then go for a walk to the river and to their shop where Tom and Dale Dineen (now we know their names!) show us their respective projects. Tom is working with his younger son on a canoe and Dale is drying all her bundles of lavender, needless to say that the place smells wonderfull!

Sunday, August 3 - From hoh...ly cow to Lake Quinault

This is Markus'  blog. Eventually he will stop being lazy and write it ;-)

Saturday, August 2 - Beaches, Fog and Forks

In the morning after a rather not so quiet night we find out that there is very thick fog and the tent is actually soaking wet. However, in the course of the morning, it clears up and suddenly there is a hole in the fog and we manage to extend the tent on a tree trun and almost dry it. We pack it up and start hiking along the beach to Sand Point. Unfortunately, the fog returns and does not go away during the whole hike… We even miss the petroglyphs at wedding rock. Fortunately, we do not miss the turnoff to go back to the Ozette Ranger station, a total of 6 miles.

Klaus had promised Selma a coffee shop after the strenuous and foggy morning, so we go directly to fork, just to find out that there really is no coffee shop. However, we find a restaurant and stop to have some burgers. Markus still remembers the WIFI password, and we found out that they do have forks in Forks. At least something!

After that, we go on to La Push beach and the entire coast on the Olympic Peninsula, but it is all in fog. Apart from that, in La Push there is a wedding, a big retreat and a surfing competition, so everything is booked. We end up sleeping in a rather “normal” RV park, but at least we have a shower and are all hooked up, so life is good after all. And we are looking forward to the next day in Hoh Rain Forest.

Friday August 1 - Capes Flannery and Alava

We got up and enjoyed our beautiful campsite by having breakfast outside. Then we headed out of Sol Doc, giving up the reservation for the second day, and obtained a permit to camp out on Cape Alava in the wild (!). The road there took about an hour and a half, like everything in Washington... We passed through Neah Bay and looked at the Makah tribe museum, where they explained quite beautifully about an original home they had excavated at Ozette and found many stories of their ancestors confirmed. Some of the new data gathered even allowed them to regain some rights, like fishing with nets.

Then we went on to Cape Flattery, where we hiked 20 minutes to the shoreline, which was absolutely stunning! Reminded us very much of Point Lobos and Monterey.

And then we went down to Lake Ozette where we packed up the tent, put the food in the bear proof boxes, packed up everything else, and hiked about an hour and a half to the shore. We arrived at the ocean about an hour before sunset and had plenty of time to pick the site right on the shore and put up the tent. Then we all enjoyed the beautiful sunset at the beach. The kids were running up and down the beach climbing on the numerous trees that were lying around as driftwood, and they saw lots of crabs on the beach. Selma was getting cold, but the boys kept waiting for the stars to come out. We eventually gave up, because it took the stars too long.

Then we went to sleep. We found out that seals stop making noise at night, but frogs unfortunately do not.

Thursday July 31 – Sol Duc

In the morning we actually manage to get up early (8 o´clock! J) and by 9 we are already at the next campground in Sol Duc.  We find a beautiful spot to set our RV and then decide to hike to the Sol Duc falls. We walked straight from our campsite and are actually all in a very good mood. Being in the forest brings our spirits up: we love the smell of the pine trees and the sound of the river but unfortunately there are some mosquitoes that begin to make Markus and me a bit nervous. As usual, everything has two sides and the positive thing about this is that we get to see some amazing spider webs lit up by a sun-ray!

The walk to the waterfalls takes us about 1 ½ hours but they are worth the hike. I sit on a rock and just enjoy staring at the water and letting its sound soothe my mind. 

We continue our hike which now begins to bit a bit strenuous because of the elevation, furthermore, the weather is humid and hot. Approximately half an hour before reaching the top where the Lake Deer is we have to stop to take a rest and eat our Cliff bars.

The lake is beautiful, surrounded by Douglas firs, Sitka spruces and some red cedars. The water is obviously freezing and nobody wants to jump in. Klaus and I take our shoes off and wet our feet for a while.

At a wood opening, we sit down and eat our sandwiches. The way back is a lot better since it is all down-hill and we are now in the shade. 

After six hours of walking….! We finally make it back to our camp-site. Everybody take a folding chair and start doing some reading. 

We then decide to ride our bikes to the Hot-Springs Resort. The kids have never been to something similar and neither has Klaus so they are pretty amazed about the temperature and the smell… sulfur obviously!

At one of the pools we meet with a lady from Hoquiam, Washington. She has a tattoo on her forearm depicting a young man of about twenty-three. She notices that I am trying to read the bible quote underneath it and she tells me her story: the young man was his son and he used to be a line man (someone setting up electricity lines), he died electrocuted while doing his job. We give her our condolences and begin to chat and she sort of invites us to pass by her lavender farm. 

After taking a shower we go back to our campsite. The boys make a fire and we have some real American hot-dogs. All in all it was a beautiful day!