Hiking our way through Washington (09-17-14)

    We know that we don’t have enough time to spend in the pacific north west this year, so we are just sort of meandering south, trying to find some hiking to do along the way.  Paul has several fraternity functions he wants to attend in Fresno this month, and his high school reunion is next month, so we are headed back to Fresno at a pretty good pace.



I say sort of meandering south because, we are taking the time to do a quick loop around the Olympic Peninsula and Olympic National Park, and hiking some of the trails.

We warmed up by hiking a short 2 mile trail from our campground in the National Park.   The trees here are huge and quite a few have fallen over, exposing some really neat looking root systems.

Our next trail was the Klahhane Ridge trail in Olympic National Park. This is a popular trail that we shared with a lot of people and animals.

After a few miles we were hiking along the ridge line and the views were awesome.

Mountains on one side….

And the Strait of Juan De Fuca on the other…

Since we were so close to Cape Flattery, the northwestern most point of the lower 48, we decided to check it out.  The trail out to the point wasn't too long.








This is the view from the end of the trail.  Very dramatic and the water was beautiful.
















In fact, the views all along the coast line were spectacular and there is something so soothing about the smell of the ocean.






Our weather has been great, giving us the chance to see some incredible sunsets along the way.

 

And once the sun set, we could sit outside and enjoy a star filled sky.

  
We hiked two more “trails’' along the shoreline in Washington.


The first trail is called the “triangle trail”.  I have no pictures of that trail for some reason.  Obviously its a triangle- 3 miles in the woods, 3 miles along the “beach” and another 3 miles in the woods- except it has to be done at low tide, or the beach trail “disappears”. Well, either we waited too long, or the trail wasn't marked because we lost our way and had to turn back (but only after trailblazing for a half hour or so).  We still hiked 9 miles but not in a loop.

Hole in the Wall is a beach trail.  It’s just outside the towns of Forks, and La Push, WA, which “Twilight” fans will recognize. We drove through town without stopping.  Although the books are set in this town, it wasn’t filmed here.

  This trail also has to be hiked at low tide, but this time, we made it. Once the tide comes in, you can’t hike through the hole. 

We had a great time exploring the shoreline and the tide pools.

Washington redefines the word “driftwood”. The beaches are littered with enormous trees, and signs warn you that floating wood can be deadly. Lucky for us we had no intention of swimming!

The Lazy Days of Winter (01-16-13)

Life’s a beach.  Our toughest decision for the last two weeks has been a) which beach should we go to and b) should we bike or walk today? 


The weather here in the Keys has been nice and warm- in the mid 80s for the most part (sorry all you friends out there in Q who are freezing your butts off!)

Stop and think a minute about the Keys.  They are essentially a bunch of small islands, connected by a highway. Over time, the old roads are replaced by newer roads, allowing for better traffic flow.

We walked the 2.5 mile stretch of the Old 7 mile bridge that is walk able. The view was amazing. The water here is so beautiful to me.  I could stare at it all day long.

We drove up to Bahia Honda State Park, intending to snorkel for the afternoon, but the wind was blowing so hard, we just lazed on the beach for the afternoon. Bahia Honda is one of the best beaches on the Keys. Of course, because of the coral etc.  the Keys are not really known for their beaches at all.

We discovered our new favorite restaurant in the Keys. It’s called Sunset Grille and Raw Bar.  It has a pool and is one of the nicer places to see a sunset in the middle keys.  But it also had something else we were very interested in…..

… Multiple big screen TVs to watch the Patriots beat the Texans.  Sadly, after installing the Sensar Pro to boost our TV reception, we only went from not being able to see the channel much at all, to being able to see the channel sporadically.  Definitely not good enough to watch a playoff game. This restaurant worked out perfectly for us.  We told the hostess we were there to see the game and she seated us right in front of a TV.  We told the waitress we were there to eat dinner and see the game, so she paced the evening accordingly.  Great service- which is awesome, because I think we’ll be back on Sunday to watch the Patriots play against the Ravens.

Sombrero Beach is about 8 miles from the campground we were staying at- a perfect distance for getting there by bike.  We rode the 8 miles, lazed on the beach for a couple of hours, then biked back home again.

We haven’t done any snorkeling or boating since we’ve been on the Keys, but we still have a few weeks to do that.  This coming week however, we’ll be quite busy.  Tomorrow afternoon my brother and sister-in-law arrive, and will stay with us on Key Largo for a week. I already have a list of things we can do but it’s their vacation, so I’ll let them choose. They may just want to lay on a beach all day!  They live in MA and got 5 inches of snow the other day.  Yesterday it was 18 degrees up there, so Dawn is ready to head south!

Freak snow storm hits Florida! (12-12-12)

  

Just kidding~these are pictures of the amazing beach sand down here in Alabama and Florida.  More later.