Olympic Peninsula Road Trip, Part Two

Day Two (continued)

Once we got back to Hwy 101 from Hurricane Ridge it was a relatively short drive to Lake Crescent.  Guide books say that there are plenty of turnouts along the lake for viewing, 

Lake Crescent

but what the guides don’t say is that it is basically the same view from each pullout—rocks at the water’s edge, a pretty lake, shore and trees on the other side.  One stop for photos was enough. 

We were going to stop for a some lunch snacks until I saw the Hungry Bear Cafe. 

Hungry Bear Cafe at Bear Creek

The owners of the Hungry Bear Cafe certainly fit the place.

With a quick U-turn we pulled up at the rustic cafe which advertised home cooking.  The chicken noodle soup of the day was definitely not Campbell’s—it was delicious.  So too were the two giant chocolate chip cookies we got for the road.

Our stop at LaPush, WA, fourteen miles off Hwy 101 was our second experience with Olympic beaches.  The name LaPush comes from the French for “mouth” and it is the largest village on Quileutae Indian Reservation and sits at the mouth of the Quileutae River.  

LaPush Harbor

Dinner!

At the harbor we were lucky enough to watch an eagle grab a fish from the small bay and fly practically over our heads to its forest nest.  The beach (named Beach One) was crowded with families enjoying the seventy degree weather.  

Beach One at LaPush

We enjoyed the views of the island or sea stacks just off shore.  We skipped Beaches Two and Three—Two was just the other end of One and Three was a long hike—and drove on to Rialto Beach six or so miles away.  

Rialto Beach was about eight miles north of Beach One at LaPush.

The view north from the parking area at Rialto Beach.

A driftwood forest at Rialto Beach.

We hiked from the parking area at Rialto for a serious climb over massive piles of driftwood to get to the beach.  

After our beach adventures it was only a short drive into Forks where we had booked the last room available at the Pacific Inn.  Forks was originally a lumber town, but now is more famous as the setting for the vampire-themed fantasy-romance “Twilight” novels by Stephanie Meyer and the movie saga that came later.  Since the release of the first “Twilight” movie in 2008, tourism in Forks has increased 700%.  The pizza at Pacific Pizza was fairly good, but nothing else about the place was: disorganized staff (they tried to give us the food of three different groups) and out-of-control grandparents (who screamed louder than the kids).  A highlight was the after dinner drive back to Beach One at LaPush for sunset photos.  

We ended day two completely exhausted.

Day Three (Wednesday), Forks to Rochester

As bad as Pacific Pizza was for dinner the night before, the Forks Cafe was good.  Not a fancy place and definitely in the category of diner, the Forks Cafe had a friendly, efficient waitress who hustled with a full house.  

Forks Cafe

Food was plentiful and tasty. After breakfast we drove eighteen miles off Hwy 101 following the Hoh River to the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park.  This was one of out most anticipated stops.  I at least had pictures in my mind of lush forest dripping with mosses and shrouded in mists.  Not this year!  

Anne hiking the Mosses Trail.

The rain forest was pretty , but not very unique to us.

The forest was dry and dusty and the mosses were dry and dusty.  Much to my disappointment the Hoh rain forest was just like almost any trail in the Oregon coast range (Drift Creek Falls) or most trails in Cascade foothills (Butte Creek Falls).  I guess if you were from Iowa or Kansas and had never seen a coastal forest, the trails at the park might be interesting, but it was quite a disappointment to drive inland 18 miles to find nothing interesting.

Our next stop made up for the Hoh disappointment.  When Hwy 101 turned back to the sea we pulled off at Ruby Beach.  

View of Ruby Beach from halfway down to the beach from the parking area .

From the parking area we hiked down to the beach and found it to be a lovely stretch of sand and driftwood punctuated with sea stacks and islands.  We walked about a mile up the beach taking pictures of the sea and the rocks.  

Island and sea stacks at Ruby Beach.

Fisher-people getting ready to try their hand in the surf.

Approaching a large sea stack (island) getting cut off from the beach by the incoming tide, I saw an eagle circling the island and snapped a picture (from long distance) as it landed in the top of a tree.  

The eagle is landing.

Both Anne and I kept photographing the eagle sentinel as we got closer to its perch.  I was sure it would fly at any moment, but it never did (at least not while we were on the beach).  

The sixty or seventy photos I shot at Ruby Beach made up for the ten or twelve I shot at Hoh.  

The rest of the trip past Hokuiam and Ocean Shores and through Aberdeen was fairly mundane—not much interesting to see.  We stayed overnight near Rochester, breakfasted again at Country Cousin in Centralia, and had about a two hour drive home.  There were some highlights and some disappointments, but I’m glad we did the trip…once.   

Next Post: The next post will come from Scotland where we will stay in Central Scotland for a few days before heading to two weeks in timeshare in the Highlands and finishing the trip back in Central Scotland.  Lots of golf and sightseeing; so, there will hopefully be good stories and photos.  Until then, I hope you enjoy these couple of warmup photos.

Perthshire Highlands