Camping on the Peninsula? Sure.

Another adventure that we did while we were living in Seattle was going out onto the Olympic Peninsula to camp for a weeknd. We decided to just look around at a few things over there and then just go for it; stopping where we wanted to and staying where looked good. So Friday afternoon we took off and drove to Edmonds to take the ferry over there, but we got stuck in CRAZY traffic and had to just sit there for a long time. Finally we got on the ferry and then were able to park the car and walk around, be outside in the ocean breeze, and see the peninsula getting closer and closer with those beautiful, tall snow-capped peaks. When the ferry got there we unloaded and started driving… west. We stopped to eat at this really cute little old fashioned diner in Skagit, a tiny town that boasts a mighty fine lavender festival. We were able to see the lavenders while we were driving on the highway and it really was beautiful.

After eating there we kept driving and then decided it was about time to find a spot to settle in for the night. We had all of our camping gear so we started looking for camping sites, and found one called the Dungenous Spit. I think I had read before that it was a cool place but had no idea what it really was, so we decided to give it a shot. And luckily we got the last remaining camp site there. Which was great. We set up our tent and then walked through a cool forest path that just opened up to a view of the ocean and a cool spit with a lighthouse at the end. We hiked down to the spit and walked around for a little while, the whole time being blown away by the wind, and just looked at how pretty everything was. One of the craziest things was that it was kind of foggy and then all of a sudden we see this HUGE shadow coming towards us out of the fog; it was a cargo ship! But it looked just like a pirate ship full of ghosts out of a scary movie. We got super lucky just happening upon this spot and later found out it is one of the highlights of the peninsula! Woo hoo!

Well, we spent the night there and then the next morning we set off again. We drove through Port
Angeles and stopped for a while to go down on the docks and see the street fair they had going on. We even ate some delish gyros!

 Then we kept driving until we got to the Hoh Rainforest. Now I don’t know whose genius idea it was to camp in a RAINforest… but we did it. And although wet, it was AWESOME. Everything was so green, honestly a hue of green I didn’t think existed in nature. Like neon green. Everywhere. Trees, moss, bushes, logs, everything. We got there and set up our camp again and then went on a few hikes. We saw some GIANT trees and a lot of green, and then ended up a really cool river. We had a squirrel friend named Chip that kept us company. He stayed really close to us the entire night while we were sitting by the fire and eating our food. Funny little Chip. Well that night we did get rained on. Lots of rain. But luckily for us, we stayed pretty dry inside the tent. We woke up the next morning and everything was covered in snails and slugs though hahaha, including our tent. I was not a happy camper about that.

The drive was so pretty!

See what I mean about the neon-green?

These trees were so huge!

Trying to climb over the top...

This was our camping site! It was perfect.

This was our squirrel friend Charlie. He stayed with us all night.

 Sunday we went to a random ward and then drove on the awesome Highway 101. We passed through
Forks (everything was covered in Twilight things) and drove past La Push, an actual Indian Reservation.

 When we were driving we got to the westernmost tip of Washington and I started seeing ocean. Real ocean; not the Sound like I had seen all summer. And it looked a whole lot like Seaside, Oregon (one of my favorite places in the world) and so naturally we had to stop. We found the first beach pullout, called Ruby Beach, and drove into the parking lot and hiked down. And man, was it beautiful!!! I fell in love instantly. It was similar to Canon Beach (another favorite) in that there were these giant rocks right down in the tide, creating awesome tide pools. I saw lots of starfish, anemones, and those little butt looking things… I don’t remember what they are called haha. So we played at Ruby Beach for a while and finally, sadly, we had to leave.

I was SO excited when I saw this!! Ah!!

Tide pools

So beautiful!

Highway 101!!

The rest of the drive home was still beautiful though, and this time we drove down to where the peninsula meets the mainland and came across through Tacoma. The traffic was crazy (AGAIN) so we stopped for a while and went to a pizza place (maybe CiCi’s?) and chilled there for a minute, stuffing ourselves full to the brim. Then we went home and had to set up all of our camping gear again to let it dry out from being rained
on the whole night before, but came home happier and wetter than when we had left.