Kalaloch is Pronounced Clay-Lock

Wednesday (July 7) we packed up our campsite at Yellowstone and headed west yet again toward Washington State and Olympic National Park. Not much to report here other than another long travel day. We ended up stopping for the night in Ellensburg, WA. Washington looked and felt a lot different than we imagined. When I think of Washington, I think of Seattle and rain, but pretty much all of eastern Washington was dry farm land. We learned that Washington is one of the leading agricultural states in the US.

We got up Thursday morning (July 8) and headed toward the Pacific coast. We went through the Cascade Mountains, and once we got over the mountains, we ran into the weather that we expected for Washington. It was about 57 degrees and sort of misty/rainy all day.

Around mid-day, we arrived at our campground at Kalaloch (pronounced Clay-Lock) Beach in Olympic National Park. This part of the Pacific certainly looks different than any other beach we’ve seen before. It’s pretty cold, and the water never gets much above 45 degrees. There were huge driftwood logs washed up on the shore. I don’t mean just logs, there were entire trees washed up. It’s hard to believe. We had a nice campsite that had a view of the Pacific. It was a little cold, but certainly worth the view.

Kate’s sister Megan and her husband Trey flew into Seattle and drove down to join us at our campsite so we had the whole family in one spot. We had back-to-back campsites so we all hung around the fire to stay warm and had a few s’mores to wrap up the evening. Our campsite had some berries that we thought were raspberries, but turned out be to salmonberries, a local berry. The trees in Olympic were amazing and had all sorts of different root formations and weird angles.

Friday (July 8) we all got up and had a great breakfast of eggs, bacon, grits and toast. Kate and I had said we were going to eat healthy on the trip, but we left that idea in Nebraska. We’ll pick it up on the way back through, but for now we’ll indulge a bit. Today’s first stop was a trip to Beach #4 in search of tidal pools where we could see some sea life. We were really hoping to see some sea anemones and sea stars, but weren’t sure what we would see. The beaches here are so different than what we have in NC. They are very rocky and have huge trees and logs washed up. There are millions of small, smooth, round rocks that have washed up on the shore. It really is an amazing site. The water is also very cold and not a lot of fun to walk in.

We got down to the beach and made our way over to the rocks where you can see the tide pools. We got really excited when we saw our first sea star and sea anemones. Little did we know that we would see as many as we could possibly hope for. There were anemones and sea stars everywhere. The stars come in purple, orange and pink and are big and fat. I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s like being in a different world.

As we were looking for stars and such, we came across an otter eating an early lunch on a rock not 20 yards from us. He was eating a fish and we got to watch him for a good while. I think we got a little too excited and were talking too loudly because he kept looking at us and eventually went back into the water to finish his lunch.

It was really nice to have Meg and Trey here with us. I will say though, that we have been going through the food. It’s hard to pack food for 6 people in one cooler and the back of a Suburban with all your other stuff. Makes you wonder how they did it back in the pioneer days. They probably did without Coke and Wavy Lays, which have been a staple around our campsite.

After a picnic lunch at beach 4, we headed toward the Hoh (pronounced Hoy) Rainforest. The Hoh rainforest is a temperate rain forest and has species and growth that only exist in this one spot in the entire world. The Hoh exists because of a combination of several geographic things that happened all together to create it. There are giant trees, huge banana slugs, cougars, air plants, and elk that live in the forest. The Hoh gets an average of 142 inches of rain a year. That’s about 12 feet of rain every year. The Charlotte region averages about 42 inches a year if you want to have a comparison. It feels like you are in the jungle, except it’s kind of cool. Kind of reminds of Jurassic Park when the Velociraptors jumped put and ate everybody.

We found a couple of banana slugs, which is one of the Hoh’s most unique residents. Compared to a bison or grizzly bear, it’s not much. But, as slugs go, it’s pretty impressive.

On our way out of the Hoh, Trey decided he wanted to pick up where a beaver had left off and grab a quick snack. I tried to rupture all the muscles in my legs and do a split between two huge fallen trees.

We left the Hoh and stopped to snap a family pic at the Olympic Park sign, then checked out a couple of t-shirt shops and grabbed some snacks before we headed back to our campsite.

We ended the day with a nice spaghetti dinner cooked up by Steph, whom we have affectionately nicknamed “Cookie” for this wagon train. Jim is the “Captain”, Kate is the “Tour Guide”, Meg and Trey are the “Stowaways” and I’m the “Navigator”. Put us all together and we make a pretty good group. After lots and lots of s’mores, we watched the sunset on the Pacific, which is almost worth driving 3,000 miles on its own. We called it a night and I don’t think any one had any trouble sleeping.

Andy & Kate