Olympic wanderings

Kerri had been talking up a campground for a few days. She stayed once back in 2014 – just a few months before we met – and liked it. The plan was to settle into the South Beach Campground along the coast for the two final nights in our work week. We pulled in just after sunset, but as is becoming normal in recent years, the campground was full. Not just full of campers, but full of big-rig RVs that are clearly going to be staying out the full term of their camping limits. A half-dozen generators were purring away within earshot and the view to the beach was blocked by a 12 foot tall wall of swoosh graphics and awnings. Even if there was a space available, this would have been an awful place for us to stay even  a single night.

We are no rookies at this though. Kerri had a backup spot right down the road. I bet you are tired of pictures of Big Blue tucked away in some overgrown forest, but that is just how it is going to be for a bit longer. Once again, down a dirt road just far enough to exit the National Park boundary is space with no one else around. No big rigs. No generators. No swooshes. Just a little cut out into the forest large enough for Big Blue to back in and enjoy a peaceful night or two away from the crowds, or so we thought. The crowds were nonexistent, but the peace was hard to come by the first night. The problem with public lands, especially in Washington State, is the logging trucks. The roar up and down just about every dirt road surrounding the Olympic National Park 24 hours a day. They were nice enough to wait until we got into bed and asleep before they started, but after that it was every 45 minutes or so… all night.

Having gotten use to the sound of the trucks crashing by, we stayed a second night anyway as we have been moving way too often this past week. Saturday morning, after a thorough combing of the area for mushrooms, we set out for our weekend plans of “I dunno”. We scrapped the idea of continuing south and re-drove the same highway north that we just came down two days prior. Along the route – kinda – is the world’s largest cedar tree. Who doesn’t love a big tree right? So we popped in for a quick hello. Yea, it wasn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but why not.

We continued north, on the Strait of Juan de Fuca Hwy, with hopes of staying at Salt Creek State park, where we have stayed once before back in our first year together. We knew it was only s slight chance that there would even be availability on a Saturday night so we were keen on the lookout for a dirt road that might call out to us. As luck would have it, and not too far from Salt Creek, a brown sign led us to an OHV trail and a path leading off of it. We had found yet another spot to call home for a night. Luckily the pacific northwest rain started up and the OHV traffic was mellow, leaving us to claim the land all to ourselves. Again, not the most scenic place or anything, but it kept us out of the crowds for the remainder of the day and the night.

In the morning  we had decided to head back into Port Townsend, ferry over to Coupeville, and stay near Oak Harbor, where a boat is for sale what we wanted to see. But, as luck would have it the ferry crashed (seriously) earlier that day, shutting down the ferry system for the rest of the day (and as it turns out, for the immediate future). We were stuck in Port Townsend on the very weekend we did not want to be in town (Wooden Boat Festival and all). The fairgrounds would be our home once again and wouldn’t you know it, the tinyhousecamper.com family was there as well. We have a night to ponder our plans for the following week.