Day Four Olympic National Park

June 1, 2014
Happy 50th Wedding Anniversary to us!   Hard to believe we have been traveling this great earth together for 50 years. We have always enjoyed seeing new places and having new experiences so chose to celebrate by taking a different type trip that would take us to many places we had never been before in a new mode of travel – the train . I can’t even imagine how many miles we have logged together and separately.  Today is the actual anniversary date  but we have been celebrating for the past two weeks and have one more to go!  Today was beach day!

We left Kalaloch Lodge about 9 AM we wanted to be to Beach 4 which was supposed to have great tidal pools for low tide at 9:30.  Beach 4 was similar to the beach a Kalaloch but the sand was much darker, almost black. Bigger rocks, lots of pools, and rocks and flowers and a steep trail down to the beach.  The pools did not contain as much sea life as yesterday. The beach was somewhat different and we enjoyed it – except for the climb back up to the parking lot!

Trail down to Beach 4 - more was steps!

Beach 4

Beautiful wildflowers on cliff

No we did not build it!

Starting back up to parking lot

Next we stopped at Ruby Beach.  We wanted some photos of what they called the sea stacks.  We got a photo but did not climb down to the beach.

Ruby Beach

 We then drove to Forks and from there to another area where there were two places to access a beach area. The southern side of the area where a river flows into the Pacific is on the Quileute Indian Reservation.  The beach and town called La Push.  It was indeed the most beautiful beach we had seen yet.  There was a large resort here with hotel, cottages, and a campground.  I could stay a week in that campground – if there is anywhere to eat…we had thought there was a restaurant but it was closed.  There were lots of folks in the resort and in the campground so there must have been somewhere. We ate fast food at the town store – it was good but I would not want to eat it for a week!

Two Views at La Push

Lot’s of sea stacks here and beautiful surf. The Quileute Indian reservation was one of the most orderly and clean we have seen in our travels. Seems most of the village is involved with the sea and fishing or crabbing. 
After walking around and taking several photos we drove back inland about 10 miles and drove down the other side of the river to the portion that is National Park Land – there was a campground here and Rialto Beach.  Of all the beaches we visited today I believe this one was our favorite. Much higher stronger surf and the same sea stacks we saw from La Push but from a different vantage point.  Hiking north along the beach would have been fantastic but our bodies were not up to the task!

The 3 above are at Rialto Beach

We considered driving back to Forks (about 10 miles) to spend the night but we both wanted to be sure we had good internet for catching up the blog. We had not had email or phone service for 3 days so decided to drive the 50 miles back to Port Angles.  The scenery is beyond description.

Crescent Lake

It has been a beautiful sunny day with temperatures in the 70’s.  The Red Lion Inn had a room for us so we are here for 3 nights until we take the bus to Seattle early on Wednesday morning to catch our train back east. This means we have 2 days to explore the rest of the Olympic Peninsula and maybe do nothing for part of a day.

COHO Ferry that we came from Victoria on - view from our room

Dinner was only a block away at Kokopelli Grill,  Ben wanted a steak and he had one of the best he has ever had according to him.  Jane had a seafood pasta dish with a slight southwestern taste.  It was great as was the salad and lobster chowder.  Maybe some of the best food of our trip., 
Jane plans to get the blog caught up and we will both watch our first TV in 3 days.  We really did not miss the lack of TV, internet, and email; but we did think it was time to reconnect!