Rick & Carol's Journey (DL)

[Be sure to click on the photos for larger versions.]

This installment covers Friday (August 22) through Tuesday (August 26).

Friday was a sunny travel day. We started by taking the 1-1/2 hour ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles, Washington. Leaving Victoria, we saw some pretty fancy houseboats tied up at docks in the harbor.


After running errands in Port Angeles, we drove down the Washington coast to the southern-most of the region’s three rainforests – the Quinault Rain Forest. We stayed in a surprisingly nice RV park located about 200 feet from the largest Sitka Spruce tree in the world.

Saturday was another sunny day. With a late check-out time, and a short driving day, we began by walking two nature trails around Lake Quinault and another path to the largest Western Red Cedar in the world. The inside of the cedar is hollow, so it is only expected to survive for another couple of hundred years.






Although we searched for the resident elk, we never could find any. After lunch in the RV, we drove to Cape Disappointment State Park in extreme southwest Washington. It is so named because early explorers wanted to sail into the mouth of the Columbia River, hoping to find good fishing and Indian traders, but due to weeks of bad weather, they never were able to make it past the sand bars that guard the entrance. We are staying for three nights in a state park. Our site is just behind low dunes and this evening we walked for a while on the driftwood filled beach.



Sunday was a rainy sightseeing day. We drove across the long bridge from Washington into Astoria, Oregon to visit Fort Clatsop, the site where Lewis and Clark spent the winter after completing their cross-country journey. The fort is the second reconstruction, the first having burned to the ground in 2005. The second reconstruction was completed the following year. It is supposed to be more authentic than the first, because all the logs used in the construction were stripped and cut by hand. Of coures, the original construction was quicker -- the party arrived at the site on December 7th and the outside walls and roofs were in place by Christmas.


Because of the rain, we decided to close down our sightseeing for the day. We did a little shipping and then called our kids.

Monday was a sunny to overcast day. We did some more sightseeing, starting at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center located just south of the RV park. According to the ranger at Fort Clatsop, it is the second best Lewis and Clark Museum, after the one in Great Falls, Montana. After seeing the museum, we walked up and downhill to the Cape Disappointment Light House.


We then went back to the RV for lunch, before driving up to the north end of the peninsula. En route we saw the claimed longest beach in the world (25 miles up the west side of the peninsula), stopped at an antique store, and walked to the shore at the National Wildlife Refuge located at the extreme north end of the peninsula. On the way back to the RV, we made a quick stop to walk to the North Head Lighthouse. We got a voice mail from Auntie Jude (who is watching our house) which said that we got a lot of rain, but no damage to the house as Tropical Storm Fay moved across Tallahassee last weekend.

Back at the RV, I listened to a couple of hours of the Democratic National Convention on XM Radio.

Tuesday was a driving day down curvy Highway 101 from Cape Disappointment to Florence, Oregon, located at the north end of the Oregon dunes, about halfway down the Oregon coast. It was sunny but cool. Our first stop was at the Tillamook Cheese Factory where we saw cheese being cut and packaged down the assembly line. After buying some of their wares, we had lunch in the attached café.

The Oregon coast has both rocky coast and sandy beaches, and we saw some of both.



Late in the day we stopped at the Sea Lion Caves, where we were able to get photos of California Sea Lions.


The RV park tonight has both cable TV and WiFi access, so in addition to watching Hillary’s convention speech, I will try to update the blog.