We made it out of Tacoma - including going over the (in)famous Tacoma Narrows Bridge (well, the new one obviously) - and since it was lunchtime, we decided to stop at the next place that looked decent. Laurel found a place on Yelp called Butchers & Bakers in Port Gamble and as we drove into the town, we were all impressed. It was very pretty with hills and water views and everything there was really nice. The restaurant was in an old building and served sandwiches but when we got there, the bakery part looked awesome. Jess and I ended up eating cookies and brownies for lunch and it did not disappoint. We even bought more for later.
We headed out and made one more diaper change stop at a rest area near Sequim and from there, we headed into the park. With a $30 entrance fee, we were glad we had one more month's use of our National Parks pass. For some reason the line of cars to get in was very slow and we found this to be a theme the whole time we were there - I still have no idea what everyone took so long with unless they were paying with pennies.
After a short drive up to Hurricane Ridge, we stopped at the the Visitor's Center there. It sits at 5200 feet and offers views of the Olympic Mountains on one side and a view of the Salish Sea on the other side. The mountain views are impressive and with rolling meadows in the foreground and mountains in the background, it looks like something out of "The Sound of Music". Mt. Olympus is just under 8000 feet so it's not terribly prominent but since it was a clear day, you could definitely see it and the glaciers on it. On the other side, you could see San Juan Island in the distance and see Vancouver Island and the city of Victoria in Canada. We did a short trail - after all, Laurel had 20 lbs. strapped to her which made it tougher - and saw the sights, such as the ski lift the native people built hundreds of years ago (we assume; there was no sign so Mark and I had to fill in the blanks).
After the drive back, we stopped in a park (which doubles as the spot of the Clallam County Fair) and let Sadie crawl around on a blanket. Too bad we forget our discs or else we could have played on the premier course on the Olympic Peninsula. After killing some time, we headed out for dinner in Port Angeles. Despite being at the height of the tourist season, it was dead downtown except for the one restaurant we wanted to eat at. Apparently, it's the best one on Yelp and that's all anyone wants to eat at. With an hour wait, we passed and went to a Texas BBQ place that was pretty good too (or maybe we were just really hungry at that point).
The hotel situation in that area is pretty bleak - it looked like mostly lousy hotels/motels and the couple decent ones were Holiday Inns and were very expensive. Even though I've never done it before, Mark and Laurel have used Airbnb before and had good experiences so we booked a place in Sequim. It was a pretty nice drive into it and felt like you were in the country which was nice. For this one, the owners were home upstairs with their dogs and we had the basement, which was fine in terms of space for us. The owners were trying to peddle their side businesses - hers was yoga and healing or something and his was Sasquatch sounds, about which he's written books. Yes, you are reading that right. The owner met us when we got there but otherwise left us alone which was good since we turned in early. Our bedroom was her yoga studio I think so it was creepy having a huge picture of a young monk right across from the bed. I swear that as we went to sleep his eyes were open but when we woke up they were closed.
As Mark says, "No one out here probably even knows what the Whalers are." Note: He said this as I was wearing a Whalers shirt today and oddly enough, as we were walking back to our car after dinner, we passed a group of young guys (smelling of weed, of course) and one had a gray Whalers shirt on. What were the odds?
