Kaliloch, WA to Victoria, B.C. (Home)

Slept in a bit this morning but up in time to have a walk on the beach on the west coast of Washington State. Then we hit the road for the ferry. We stopped at the tourist info place in Forks, WA to update this blog on their wi-fi. While I was there a fellow who was sitting in his car got out and started asking the usual traveller questions. Where you from? Where’ve you been?

When I told him I was from Vancouver Island, he got going on this long tirade about how he had two kids in Nanaimo and hadn’t seen them in nine years because of his psycho wife and the Canadian justice system. He said he was from Vermont originally. He was driving a car with Colorado plates. In any event, his justice rant soon led to various observations about the U.S. political system and some predictable conspiracy theories. By the time he got going on Obama I was thinking that it wasn’t the wife who was the psycho. I finally told him I had to catch a ferry and that broke his train of thought (if there was one) and he was off.

The ferry was pretty much full. Only a couple of places left empty at the back of the boat. It was foggy and chilly in Port Angeles and on the first part of the crossing. (I’ve never seen it sunny and warm in P.A.) As a result for the first third of the crossing the captain kept blowing the Coho’s horn which is not Eliot’s favourite sound even now that he’s gotten a bit deaf. But as we got closer to Victoria the fog dissipated and by the time we entered Victoria harbour it was a very pleasant afternoon.

Good to be home.

Nehalem State Park to Olympic Nat. Park

Packed up today for the final leg of this month long road trip. The weather was so fine this morning ... not a cloud and the sun warming things up nicely by 9:00am. But duty calls. I see from the MEC intranet that I am scheduled for a shift on Monday, October 1. Besides I’ve run out of clean underwear and socks so we might as well pack it in.

No big rush today as there are only two sailings of the Coho Ferry from Port Angeles these days: at 8:00am and 2:00pm. And there’s about 6 hours of driving. So the plan was to stop overnight in Olympic National Park. Which we have.

On previous trips to the coast I’ve noticed, just north of Cannon Beach, a sign for Ecola State Park. I’ve always been past the turn off before I’ve noticed. Today I made a point of finding this park and it turned out to have some spectacular views of the coast. There’s a two mile winding, hilly road into the park. But lots of parking when you get there. And plenty of views like this.

There are also hiking trails that will take you quite a ways north along the coast and down to some of the beaches. But we didn’t really have time to explore those. But next time for sure.

Next stop was Astoria, Oregon. Although we’d not come far it was time for lunch so I checked out a restaurant called The Blue Scorcher. I had a pesto pizza and a really tasty salad. The place had been recommended to me by a couple who had been befriended by Eliot at Nehalem. They were cooking with a frying pan a couple of sites over from ours and I suspect Eliot thought that bacon might be involved. Joke was on Eliot, they’re vegans!

 

 

 

Building detail – Astoria

 

 

After lunch in Astoria it was a three hour drive to Olympic National Park in Washington State. The park is huge but we’re staying in a narrow strip of the park that runs for about 15 miles along the Pacific coast in Kaliloch. We arrived around 6:30pm. Time to catch a few shots of the sunset.

Nehalem State Park

Stayed put today. Long walk on the beach with Eliot this morning. The tide was out so there was lots of hard, flat sand to walk on.

In the afternoon Eliot seemed uninterested in getting in the basket on the bike for a ride into nearby Manzanita so, since it wasn’t very warm, I put him in the car and went on my own. Had a nice lunch at a bakery/café on the main street. Browsed the next door bookstore where I bought (and am enjoying very much) the new book by Julian Barnes called “The Sense of an Ending”.

Back to liberate Eliot from the van. A walk around the park. Numerous chats with other dog owners. Late supper. More reading. Then to bed.

Looking towards Manzanita (bottom right) from the dunes at Nehalem State Park.

South Beach S.P. to Nehalem Bay, S.P.

A splendid day on the Oregon coast. There was no fog when the sun came up this morning and by 9am I was sitting outside reading in shorts and a t-shirt. Often on the coast the sun is shrouded in fog or low cloud until it burns off later in the morning.

Since we were just going up the coast fewer than a hundred miles, we were in no rush. Just north of Newport we stopped at Otter State Park to enjoy the views. And there was lots to see. There were whales heading up and down the coast quite near to shore. We and the others who had stopped probably had better views than the people in the whale watching boats out on the water. And there were big swells on the Pacific making for big surf when the waves finally hit land.

A little further up the coast we stopped at a spot I always take in when driving Highway 101. Cape Kiwanda is off 101 near a little village called Pacific City. I imagine that the population of Pacific City is under 1,000 souls. We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant that is run by a couple of those souls. The two women were run off their feet – one behind the counter and one waiting tables indoors and out. The place was packed mostly with locals although one tourist was surprised at the cash when he discovered they only took cash or cheques. I had a yummy turkey and bacon wrap with delicious coleslaw. Eliot was allowed some bacon so that made his afternoon.

Cape Kiwanda is just up the road from Pacific City. There is a beautiful beach and one of those huge Oregon coast rocks out in the ocean. Luck was with us as there was a surfing competition going on. A long board competition that also included events for stand up paddleboarders. It was fun to watch but I couldn’t figure out exactly what was being judged. Since my teenage years I have always thought that surfing was the coolest of the cool.

And Helmut was delighted to be surrounded by lots of Westy buddies. There was one on the beach (see above) and three in the parking lot just in one row.

(Click on any of the photos on the blog for a larger size)

And around 5:30pm we arrived at Nehalem State Park near Manzanita, Oregon. It’s a beautiful park and we have a campsite just a few steps from the path to the beach which is about four miles long. We’re actually going to stay here for two nights and then make serious moves in the direction of home.