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Published: August 15th 2007
Day 5 - Port Angeles. Olympic National Park.
HOLY SMOKEZ, kids, you need to come to Olympic National Park! We drove up to Hurricane Ridge first, which was only about a 15 minute drive. Once you hit the top, there's a gift shop, clean bathrooms, convenience store, and BREATHTAKING views. Snowcapped mountains 'n all. There are tons of trails to hike and camp on, but we had a whole day o' stuff planned so we just went on the short one. It was still incredible.. go on! Look at the pictures!
Then we drove on Highway 101 headed towards the Pacific Ocean. On the way there was this incredibly beautiful lake - Lake Cresent - and oh my stars.. there were mountains but just the water itself was a sight. It was beyond blue, y'all!. The road went right up to the edge and I had to restrain myself from jumping out of the car and taking a dip in the lake. (There was a lodge there, too, and, had we known about it, we would have stayed there. There were cottages/cabins/lodge complete with restaurant and gift shop and INCREDIBLE views. Lake Cresent Lodge.. yes, yes, that is the name.)
Anywho, we get to Rialto Beach... if you could call it that. It's this pebbly shore. Cold. Hard to walk. and yet it was absolutely beautiful. It was all misty and gray and the 'driftwood' were these huge - i suppose - redwood trees. They were dead and jagged and stark white. So cool. We were walking down the coast towards the 'hole in the wall' - that we never reached - and saw that someone had stacked all these stones on one of the trees. I never would have thought about putting them up like that.. delightful.
Eventually we got hunger painz and turned around to go back to the car. We stopped at this little shack and got the world-famous 'river burgers'. ... seems like everything up here is world-famous, no? Anyway these cheeseburgers were DIVINE.. haha I guess I was just so hungry, but oh man what a burger.
We drive back up Highway 101 and stop by the - yet again - world famous Sol Duc hotsprings. Word of advice..
DO NOT GO HERE! Oh man it was DISGUSTING. They weren't even real hotsprings.. it was just like 3 huge hottubs CRAMMED with the aged
and overweight. I know I have a personal problem with public pools already.. but this was a whole new level. I honestly am a little scarred. Wish I had a picture so I could share in greater detail...
However, our trip to Sol Duc wasn't a complete waste. We kept driving up the road and hit a parking lot for the trails. We hiked what was supposed to be .8 mile, but it felt like forever. I guess I'm just out of shape. But after walking this beast of a trail you get rewarded with this stunning waterfall. People got out from behind the posts and CLIMBED ON THOSE ROCKS that you see in the pictures. Crazy. There's no way anyone would survive a fall down that monster.
So we're all pooped by now after all the walkin' and hikin' and seein' lardy people and whatnot. We go back to our Red Lion Hotel and call it a night.
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