Its funny how Operation Land Grab evolved as we continued our exploits. It began with a primary agenda, find a place that we might want to live; land-hunt-focused. Within a short period of time, the focus became more fluid, without an agenda. This is much more our speed and its way more fun. Sometimes you have to take in the essence of place from the 20,000-foot vantage to know if you like it.

And so, our National Park circuit continued west from The Cascades. Jake and I needed a break from camping and roughing it, so we booked a B&B in Bellingham for a few days. However we still have several hours before checkin, so we opted to head north to the Canadian border, or just shy of it. We stopped at a tiny town of Birch Bay, from which we could actually play in the Pacific Ocean. I can’t believe we’re all the way across the country from where we started in North Carolina!

Birch Bay was a super cute and small village on the coast. We pulled off and parked Blue before venturing out toward the beach. It was clearly low tide, made most apparent by the small sailing and power vessels laying aground on the beach. Maybe this happens all the time? It seemed odd, but then there are very extreme tide swings out here, so I’m not that surprised.

We jumped at the opportunity to go for a walk in the bay, spotting tide pools full of sand dollars, crabs and other sea critters. It turned into a fun game, from which Jake and I did our best to “save” the sand dollars from death, by putting those that were out of the water back into it. I’m not sure if it matters, but we like to think we made a difference and saved many lives this day.

After the exhausting and satisfying stroll, the tide rolled in fast, so we booked it back to the car and hit the road. Our abode for the next several days is just outside of the city, in a nondescript and rural area.

Let me just say it was exactly what the doctor ordered. We had a private bungalow that sat in a huge organic garden. Our host told us that we were welcome to anything from the garden, and so we happily obliged and spent the next several days eating and cooking exclusively of the fruits (and veggies) produced from the garden. There was also a little chicken coup from which we enjoyed fresh organic eggs daily. Jake had so much fun picking squash, zucchini, berries, kale, lettuce varieties and all sorts of other goodies, from which he baked some crazy yummy dishes.

For the most part, we didn’t go anywhere whilest we visited Bellingham. We did go out one morning for breakfast in town and then visited WhatNot park and falls, which was beautiful and green and lush, exactly like you would imagine in the northwest. It even rained on us for about 20 minutes, which was the first (and only) time we saw rain on our PNW journeys.

Bellingham was short and sweet, 4 days of R&R bliss. We definitely took a lot of inspiration away from our stay, specifically the big garden and chicken coup setup. This is something we absolutely want to incorporate into our Bosco Station! I spent most of my time trying to work and make some extra dough and Jake did research to figure out where we should head next. Neither of us was keen to get back into hunting land, so we focused on landmarks instead.

Olympic National Park and Twilight Tour

The journey to the Olympic peninsula left us with some options. We could either drive out toward the San Juan Islands, and take a ferry directly across to Port Townshend, from which we can access the park OR we can drive all the way down through Seattle and on around to Olympia and up north from there. The former option only requires about 2-3 hours of driving over the latter, which is 6-7 hours of driving.

The day of our departure, July 26 to be exact, I was supposed to turn in some work for a client, but had not heard anything back from them. And with our very spotty internet connectivity while abound, I wanted to wait as long as possible before leaving. I heard nothing all morning, and so we left at 10AM.

Due to our later than normal departure, we chose to drive the short way and take the ferry. That said, we didn’t book it ahead of time because we had no idea how long the drive would take or when exactly we would leave, and figured it would be easy enough to just show up (we checked online to verify this).

The drive down the coast was absolutely stunning. Its hard to describe this beauty and also how very different it is to the rest of Washington that we’ve seen so far. The Pacific Ocean islands are vastly different from those in the Atlantic, with their very tall and rocky terrain and mountain peaks.

When we finally arrived there was a crazy long line of cars, many pulled off the road with engines turned off. It was difficult to judge the situation but everyone was waiting for the ferry. Apparently the morning fog was so dense that they had to cancel a few, which caused this huge backup. It took almost 20 minutes before someone came out to tell us that there is no more room on any ferry for stand-by’s the rest of the day.

Shoot, this is no good. I wasted no time and pulled up the website, noting that there were a few spots left on several ferries. So I bought a ticket for the next one, 2PM. I don’t know why the worker didn’t say this, he made people believe that there were no spots left, but obviously online there are.

It took us a few minutes to realize that we don’t have to just sit here and can go off and do something for a few hours. Jake thought we could go find a place for lunch and so we drove to the nearby town of Coupeville.

Coupeville is very cute, weirdly reminded me of Lewes, Delaware. Its right on the water and has a lot of beautiful quaint restaurants and shops. Unfortunately it was also jam packed with people, probably everyone waiting for the ferry, like us. We literally drove up and down every single street to find zero parking. So much for a fun lunch, instead we stopped at a park to make wraps. Its boring but at least we’re fed (Jake is much more concerned about eating than I am). From the park was a pathway that went down to the water and wharf with sailboats anchored. And not small ones, but large ones, like ours. It was fun to walk around, smell in the salt air and take in a very pretty waterfront before heading back to the ferry boat.

The ferry is massive and not like any we’ve been on before. For only $15 the crossing takes only 30 minutes and saves hours and miles of driving time. Its totally worth it. It did take almost an hour to load up, due to several very gigantic trucks that had to be loaded in a specific way to balance the weight. Old Blue had to squeeze between a lot of these big boys maybe a little closer than he would have liked.

Our plan from here was loosely based around the ferry. We hoped to get over to the Olympic National Park campground, specifically Heart O The Hills, as early as possible to claim a spot. They are first-come-first-served and since its a Thursday, we are hopeful that the weekend warriors will not pack in. This tactic has worked in the past, but you just never know.

We arrived at Port Townshend and considered touring the city a bit, but it too was very crowded. This makes us anxious so we pushed on for another hour before we arrived at the park gate. It was very crowded here, but we stopped to grab a map to study at camp.

Heart O The Hills campground was not far, and surprisingly empty when we arrived. Both of us breathed a bit easier once we picked a spot, the first one in the first loop. We really don’t have a lot of stuff, so settling in took no time at all. And while there are still a few hours of daylight left, we were both pretty tired from travels. So we opted to take a short hike around the grounds instead, enjoying the space and scenery and brisk air. Jake thought it’d be fun to try to light the camp fire with his homemade bow drill, but he had no luck. Maybe its too damp, or he didn’t have the right tinder, or he just doesn’t know what he’s doing? It was a fun distraction and passed the time. 🙂

We really enjoyed ourselves in Olympic National Park. We stuck to Hurricane Ridge which pretty much follows the entire Olympic range, including Mt. Olympus and her many neighboring peaks. The road was winding and beautiful. I made Jake pull over more times than I can count to take a snapshot of a lovely view, flowers, animals, all the important stuff.

These are the exact kind of mountains that we want to live in. Can we just move into this National Park, Please?

Its always a blast to visit the beauty of a national park, however I had another agenda on the docket. I’m a closet Twilight nerd (not as much for the movies as for the books) and simply could not pass up an opportunity to visit Port Angeles, Forks and La Push, all featured in the smash Vampire/Werewolf hit.

If you are familiar with Twilight, then you would know that for the most part, the story happens in Forks and La Push, with a few short trips to Port Angeles. For the most part, none of these places looks the way the movies portray them. But they were beautiful in their own ways.

Forks is barely a town, with one small and shabby looking main street. Its a logging town, with little else but a high school and a small strip of gas stations and hardware stores. We passed through quickly on our way to La Push Beach, which was our primary destination on this little side trip excursion.

The drive to La Push was much more in-line with how the movies portrayed it. There are three main beaches, we headed out to First Beach (the main one). On our way we passed through La Push and the Quiliyute reservation. Its extremely tiny and yet has such a lovely charm to it. We passed the vampire line, made sure we were free and clear as humans and kept on driving.

Walking the beach was probably the most fun that we had during this part of our trip. It was great to kick off our sandals and feel the soft sand in our toes and the cold water on our feet. The tide pools were up and we also enjoyed watching boats struggle to go in and out of the small marina that lay on the side of the beach where we walked.

Oh so much fun! The weather was perfect, not too hot or cold and cloudy enough to be comfortable. I wish we could have stayed longer, but our next campground, which I was barely able to secure, lay further south.

Unfortunately for me, I received word that I still had some work to finish up, which is always a pain when camping. It took me long enough that I actually had to charge my computer. The only outlet that I could find was in the girls’ bathroom. So this is where I pulled up a camp chair and laptop and got to work. It was completely awkward but also kind of hilarious. Who in their right mind would hang out in a bathroom to work?

Kekohe, our camp, is right on the Pacific Ocean. I could only get a spot for one day so our time there was short and sweet. But it was beautiful atmosphere and I’m just so glad that we spent this last week soaking in some truly wonderful memories.