Day 12: Monday 11th September 2012 - Seattle to Washington DC

Back home again and reflections.

Our flight from Seattle was the red eye, getting into Washington Dulles just before rush hour. It was odd to be back in familiar surroundings. It felt like we had been away a long time.

Reflecting on all our adventures, there were a number of  things that were surprising and memorable:

California was so big it took us more than half our journey time to get through it,

The Mustang was smooth to drive and didn't let us down but was actually not that exciting to drive.

We equally had fun roughing it to staying in 5 star hotels.

Our environment could change dramatically in a short space of time. from the sea fog to clear skies and high temperatures, luxury suites to log cabins, smooth highways to windy backroads.

At the end of the day it was this diversity of experience that made the trip so fantastic.

My personal highlights were the cocktail bar overlooking San Diego when we first arrived, the grizzly bears at San Diego zoo, playing in the sea in Solana Beach, the swimming pool at Santa Barbara, the drive along Big Sur, tasting different champagnes in Napa, the sand dunes in Oregon, Newport aquarium, the Benson Hotel Portland, Kask - the cocktail bar in Portland, the bridge in Astoria, sunset in Ruby Beach Washington, Kayaking round Lake Crescent, the view from the Space Needle, Seattle. 

Of the places I would go back to again - it would definitely be Southern California, this time including some of the National Parks and more beach time. As a separate trip I would do Washington State, including a trip up to Vancouver, Canada and back down to Portland Oregon.

 

Day 11: Sunday 9th September 2012 - Lake Crescent to Seattle

Starting the journey back.

From Lake Crescent it is a fairly short journey to Port Angeles. From here you can see across the water to Canada. With more time we would have gone up to Hurricane Ridge from here to see views across the mountains. I'm sad we didn't get chance to do this. 

The route to Seattle involves crossing a number of bridges over the broken coastline and estuaries and then a ferry ride.  I love the water so it was fun to travel this route. The line for the ferry is quite long and it probably took us about half an hour of waiting. I would highly recommend the creperie just before the ticket gate. They had some wonderful selections all cooked to order in front of you.

With time being short in Seattle, we decided the best place to head would be the Space Needle. We spent a long time up at the top admiring the amazing view of the city and coast. We were particularly fascinated by the seaplanes which come by your view every few minutes.

Saying goodbye to Seattle and facing the end of our journey was hard. We'd had an amazing adventure and seen so many diverse places. The trip counter when we gave the car back read 1910.7 miles. Time to head to the airport terminal and then home.

Day 10: Saturday 8th September 2012- Lake Crescent

Wonderful day of no driving

Last night we had arrived at the top of Washington state, completing our goal with very few issues and delays.

The log cabin was certainly rustic. Our bed was in a small half loft area so a little on the cozy side. The back doors of the cabin opened out onto a grassy area just a short distance from the lake, with a handy picnic bench for admiring the view.

Today was most definitely about chilling. Our first order of business was to find supplies. The small shop at the booking office sold basics - nothing fresh of course. We managed to cobble together some breakfast and sandwiches and booked a couple of kayaks for the afternoon.

Kayaking around the lake was a fantastic experience. We could only cover a small portion of the lake itself even over a few hours. The wind creates some fairly substantial waves and so, while it's hard work paddling, it's also a lot of fun. We found a small beach to pull up on for lunch and then explored a different part of the lake where there were more privately owned cabins and jetties.

It was a nice warm day. One of the things we did not account for was the effect of being out in the Sun, on the water for a number of hours with no top up of suntan lotion. On any other occasion it probably would have been fine but on top of the exposure we had with the top down in the Mustang, it was enough to burn my arms, exposed parts of my back and even my legs. I'm actually writing this blog 5 months after the trip and I still have tan lines from that day. I didn't realize at the time. When we got back from kayaking we were fairly wet anyway and decided to go for a swim in the marked off swimming area in front of the cabins. The water was cold but fairly refreshing to me and I got straight in and started swimming, laughing at Christian for being a wimp and standing in the shallows complaining of the cold. Probably this prevented the sun burn being even worse than it was.

After showing off the lake water we went for a nearby hour long hike to a waterfall. We had planned to spend a little more time here and go for a number of long hikes through the Olympic National Park but after all the exhaustion of the trip it was better to keep it simpler. I would definitely like to come back and spend some more time around the park. I'd originally wanted to go to Sol Duc hot springs but this seems to book up quite far in advance. Next time.

To end the night, we built a very impressive fire in a proper firepit, made bacon and hotdog rolls and drank beer! We did try our hand at smores, having never had them before. We were not very successful at this, either managing to pack too many in and drop them all when we tried to pick it up on the rack or burn them. There's something very special about being around a proper fire though. It was a wonderful end to our time there.