Hi all,
Well, lazy Sunday so thought I would write down a few things about our recent trip to Washington State (my home state). With the virus, I wanted to do something low risk. Mostly outside and away from hotspots.
We landed at Sea-tac and rented a car and were off. We drove to Lake Chelan (on the eastern side of the state) and spent four nights there. Our timing was perfect as the wineries had just opened back up. Visiting the wineries is one of our favorite things to do. We managed to visit three in our three days there. My favorite was Siren Song. We had our wine and food outside at all three places. We also did the Riverwalk everyday, but did not get to some of the other hikes I had hoped for. The weather was great and we enjoyed the change of scenery.
After our four nights in Lake Chelan, we drove to Port Townsend, which is on the western side of the state. It was a long day of driving and we got to Port Townsend about 4pm. We had dinner outside at a restaurant and then walked around the upper town to look at the Victorian houses. We saw lots of deer, all of whom seem to be very tame as we got quite close to them. The next day we drove to Sequim to visit some of the lavender farms. There are quite a few, but we only had time for two. Again, we really enjoyed the change of scenery and smelling the lavender!
After meandering around the country roads there, we drove to Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park and did a couple of easy hikes there. Then back to Port Townsend for a second night. The following am, we checked out of the hotel and our first stop was Lake Crescent (this is a lodge located in Olympic National Park), where we did the Marymere Falls hike and had lunch at the lodge. Then it was on to Sol Duc, where we drove the long road into the park and did the Sol Duc Falls Hike. So very beautiful! Some of the trees are over 750 years old and have been around since before Columbus landed on the shores of North America. After the Sol Duc hike we continued our drive on to Forks, where we spent the night. In the am, it was back on the road to visit the Hoh Rainforest. This was my favorite part of the trip. The trees, moss, lichen, well words cannot do it justice. Suffice to say, it was just what my soul needed. Although we saw lots of deer on this trip, we didn't really expect to see other wildlife. Well, we got lucky and on the Hall Of Mosses hike we spied a black bear way up high in a tree. He was stripping the bark and appeared to be eating insects. We couldn't believe how high he had climbed and that pretty much put the kabosh on my thoughts of climbing a tree to escape a bear if I ever needed to! Right next to the Hall Of Mosses hike, was the Spruce Trail hike. Neither of these hikes are very long, so we did them both.
After hiking, we continued driving to Kalaloch (on the western coast of Washington) to take our photo with the Tree Of Life. (google it to see pictures). Amazing tree, which seemed to be the theme of our trip! This was the only night that I had not made reservations. We ended up driving to Moclips and spent the night at Oceancrest Resort. We had our one special dinner here (inside, but with social distance). The food was fabulous! The next morning we drove to the original hotspot of Kirkland so my kids could visit with their cousins. Then it was back to Alaska. Upon entering Alaska you fill out paperwork saying you will take the covid test at the airport or quarantine for two weeks. We all chose to take the covid test and I'm happy to report that we were all negative. I will also add that in Alaska I don't drive very much and this trip was definately a lot of driving, which I enjoyed. We put 1,200 miles on the rental car.