An Olympic Experience

If I sound like one with cabin fever nearly a month looking out of a 22 ft RV at the rain will do that to you. 

 

Before I left Long Beach I took the opportunity to ride the entire discovery trail and walk, then ride through town.  Unfortunately neither of the local eateries I visited impressed me much though they did play havoc with my digestion.  When it finally stopped raining I took a ride down to the nearest grocery store—Sid’s Groceries; then in a spur of the moment decision bought myself a kite, got it assembled, and went out and flew it.  I couldn’t say just what the attraction of kite flying is but it definitely grabbed me.  Shortly after I got back it started raining again. 

 

Tuesday morning I went online to settle my financial accounts and set out to circle Willapa Bay and head up to Grays Harbour and onto another finger of land called Westport.  If Long Beach rolls up its sidewalks early Westport doesn’t have any.  Unfortunately it rained during my entire stay.  Not liking the first place I drove up to settled on a motel/RV complex up the street for one night.  After a night of rain drove up to the point to stay at a second campground—the rain looked much the same there but there wasn’t a code to remember to use the washroom.  Some days are diamonds, some days are hale stones. 

 

After a drive through the port city of Aberdeen headed inland through heavily treed terrain and finally came out onto Olympic National Parks Kalaloch Campground.  The fact that it’s mere feet from a highway with a steep grade that forces trucks to  use engine breaks meant little when I got to my chosen campground on the edge of the cliff leading down to the beach where waves started breaking a mile out to sea and the wind howled through the trees at a full gale.  Anyone who has seen the TV Series Beachcombers is aware of the piles and cross piles of dead timber that litters north-west coast beaches but here the pile extends 30 ft from the cliff to the water’s edge.  The air is filled with salt spume and a foot of foam piled up at the edge of the waterline only to be blown along the beach where it disintegrated as it rolled along.  The Pacific is anything but placid.  During a break in the rain I took advantage of a pocket of sunlight to go shoot over one hundred pictures. 

 

Even though my RV was tucked into a pocket of scrub keeping the interior warm that night with my propane furnace was the price of my fantastic view.  When the cloud and fog lifted slightly I was able to see a tall lighthouse on one corner of a large offshore island on the horizon.  It promptly disappeared again.  I crawled into bed rocked by the wind with the roar of the sea in my ears.  This morning dawned with a clearing sky and the wind subsiding to a light breeze.  Had I not needed exact change I didn’t have and a better supply of propane I’d have been tempted to stay an extra night.  As it was I packed up and drove up to Forks. 

 

Forks is an interior town that capitalizes on the fact that it is the setting for the book series, Twilight.  The movie wasn’t actually shot there so the Twilight tour is fictitious twice over.  Stopped to visit the Olympic Park Information Centre.  Had I had a place to camp staying there could have been fun but I continued the drive inland twisting and turning along the shores of Crescent Lake.  Finally reached Port Angeles and found the ferry terminal so that I’d know where I was going when I decide to cross to Victoria.  Drove west of town to the local KOA which is open this time of year.  The sun came out today but I felt too fatigued to do anything about it.  Do I sound bored?