Beaches, Fog, and Bears, OH MY!

Ah spontaneous trips are a thing to take advantage of when you have the time. With Fall settling in, Dylan and I decided to throw in an Olympic Peninsula trip. We woke, of course, before 5am to catch the early morning ferry. Because we have already visited the Olympic region, we knew what we liked and what we LOVED. But We had always seen signs for a game farm and this time we stopped by before heading to the coast. Located in Seqium, and in between Port Townsend and Port Angeles, this Northwest Safari looked like a lot of fun! With some quick research, we bought some whole grain bread that we could feed to the animals. Once we entered, we were immediately energized from the herds of animals running towards our cars for food. To say the least, we were screaming the whole time because big animals kept sticking their heads in our windows. It was quite the challenge to take pictures of an animal that is trying to lick you. We were first greeting by ox, llamas, and other large animals. We then took a loop and the zebra started to come our way. I had never been so close to a zebra before, or even feed one! It was so cute and weird. Such an adrenaline rush. We then came across to the bears, MY FAVORITE! I feel like everyone always gets to see wild bears, and this was my chance to get up close and personal. Even the bears came running up to our car! As the bear sat there patiently while we took pictures, I started to say "Hi Bear!!", and the bear waved! After a few more tries and some bread, this bear was my best friend. He was so cute. Continuing on the safari, we got to witness white lions and other exotic tigers being fed. We came at the right time, it was such an entertaining event to watch these animals feed. After some more photo opportunity's from the chasing bison, we headed West to the coast!

We have become very familiar with the drive to Forks. We always drive along Crescent lake and have wondered how to get to the other side. This time we pulled many U-turns to follow roads that led us in the right direction. On the way, we saw a sign for Elwa National Park. We thought we would take a look considering we have passed it many times. As a disappointment, the valley trail was closed for the season, but that didn't stop us from going down Autumn colored roads. We explored rivers and forest roads until we continued on our way to our final destination. When we got to Crescent lake, we finally drove around to get to the other side, and the views were incredible. The lake was pristine and the mountainous sides were accompanied by fog and orange trees. We may have trespassed a bit to get down to private docks and boat houses, but it was the off-season anyways! Crescent Lake was a successful mission to us!

After an entertaining day in the Olympic Peninsula, we finally made it to our future home of Forks. We have grown to love this logging town. With extremely sweet people and hundreds of inches of rain a year, this town has everything we need. Forks is basically a one street city, with a grocery store, a few diners, and a run down airport. But we like that this isn't a tourist spot. We decided to stay at the free campground called Hoh Ox Bow and lucked out with the river view spot. Before arriving there, we grabbed some sandwiches and treats from the local store. We were in for a good night's rest as the fog swaddled our tent all night. We planned to wake up at 6am to get a head start on the day, but the area was dark until about 8am. Once we could see outside our tent, we saw all the fog and jumped out of bed. We quickly put the tent down and went back into Forks to get breakfast and coffee from our favorite cafe. We then decided to head to Rialto beach because of the beautiful ocean rocks that are present there. We got to the beach but didn't see the rocks. We quickly discovered we had to walk down the beach for a couple of miles. Walking on sand isn't the easiest, but is definitely one of the most beautiful. And the obstacle to avoid the raging on-shore waves kept us entertained. Once we got to Mora, we hiked up a cliff to get a better view. This was a fun and rewarding adventure that we will do again.

After a few hours at Mora and Rialto, we headed back into Forks to get a real lunch and wifi. We lucked out by going into a diner that actually had wifi. We stayed there for a few hours eating our hamburgers, writing emails, and editing pictures. It is always pleasant to hang indoors for a few hours when camping for a few days. We then decided to drive down to Kalaloch to camp on the beach. As it was the off season, half of the campground was closed so we decided to camp as far away from people as possible. We had a lovely evening walk on the beach and to a lagoon before we cuddled back in the tent. Without surprise we decided to head back to our new favorite diner to catch breakfast the next day. With bacon, french toast, and wifi, we were able recoup for our next stop. At this point in our journey, I was aching for a shower. So we made reservation at the Quinault Reservation campground which supplies hot coffee, more wifi, and hot showers-all for $15 a night. The campground is in the area of La Push, which is a quiet and scenic area on the coast. There are two beaches, Second and Third Beach, which are extremely popular. Dylan and I completed both hikes before we called it a day. These hikes are absolutely amazing. Each is about 3 miles, and they start in the rain forest and end at the beach. We had the most amazing weather through these forests. We saw the most beautiful fog in the world, the trees were just lost in it! You can see pictures below, but it was just a dream. These hikes were so worth it and they are a good day activity to do. Unfortunately, I started to come down with a cold at this time, so I wasn't feeling the best, but the hiking and fresh air really made me feel better. After these hikes, we took advantage of the hot showers and then drove down the street to a local restaurant for dinner. We had felt so refreshed and accomplished with all the hiking we had done. The Olympic Peninsula is never boring. After our philly cheese steaks, we were finally ready to warm up in our tent on the beach. The next morning, my cold had hit hard so we had to call the trip over. I was so disappointed to leave, but it had been amazing couple of days and was ready to rest and get over my illness. We had a lovely drive back and were able to catch the Seahwaks game the next day. New adventure coming soon :)