The Other Washington

Out here in the West, when you say you're from Washington, people automatically assume you're from Washington state rather than the DC area. But for us, Washington state is "the other Washington."

And the other Washington is where we headed when we left Oregon.

We'd been to Washington before and didn't feel the need to visit Seattle, Mount Rainier, or Mount St. Helens again. We WERE very interested in spending time in the Olympic Peninsula in the northwest corner of the state, though, and so headed straight north from Astoria, Oregon.

When we camp, we have several options. We can pull into a full-hookup campground (electric, water, and sewage, or at least electric and water) or we can "boondock," relying on our storage tanks and batteries. We thought we would boondock for a couple of days, and took advantage of an organization we recently joined, called Harvest Hosts, which has pulled together several hundred farms, ranches, wineries, and golf clubs that will let you stay overnight for free. Our first stop was a small winery where we bought a bottle of their local vintage. The second Harvest Host site we visited was Purple Haze Lavender Farm in Sequim, Washington, very close to Puget Sound. The lavender was in full bloom, and the whole area smelled great (they even had lavender-infused white chocolate ice cream).

The next day we had a short drive to our campground for the week, located in Port Angeles, Washington. This was our base for exploring Olympic National Park. Olympic is a beautiful park with a number of different climate zones. The Pacific side gets a lot of rain, and the eastern side is in the mountains' "rain shadow" and much drier.

We first explored the Hurricane Ridge area (so called because of the potential for strong winds). The wildflowers were running riot, and there were also great views of Mount Olympus and the glacier that tops it. Looking in the other direction, you could see the Strait of Juan de Fuca and, beyond it, Vancouver Island in British Columbia.

Another day, we traveled around to the west side of the park and visited the Hoh Rainforest. Amazing scenery there as well - very lush with trees dripping with moss, colorful mushrooms, giant Sitka spruce the size of redwoods, and streams filled with glacial "flour" from the grinding down of rock by the mountain glaciers, giving It the water a milky hue.

Midweek, we left the Ciaowagen in the campground, and took a ferry across the strait to the city of Victoria on Vancouver Island. Victoria is the capital of British Columbia and an exceptionally charming city. We stayed at Dashwood Manor, a delightful B&B.

We spent an entire afternoon exploring Victoria's world-famous Butchart Gardens, with amazing flowers and foliage.

We spent much of the next day at the Royal British Columbia Museum. They had a large section devoted to the native population (what Canadians refer to as First Nations), and also a special exhibit on the Maya, including rare examples of Mayan religious scrolls (Spanish missionaries burned most of the scrolls during the 16th and 17th centuries). There was also a natural history section featuring a wooly mammoth.

After returning to Port Angeles by ferry, we decided to visit one of the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound. Friends recommended going to Orcas Island, which features a commanding view of the San Juans and a large state park with waterfalls and great hiking trails around a lake. That took us on another ferry ride (again, with just the Fittata). NOTE: although there are whales in Puget Sound, we did not see any orcas during our visit to Orcas Island.

It was time to leave the Pacific Ocean and head inland, so our next stop was two days exploring North Cascades National Park in northern Washington. It's one of those less-visited national parks, close to the Canadian border. 99% of it is designated wilderness, and it has more glaciers than Glacier National Park! It featured craggy peaks, beautiful lakes (including Diablo Lake which is colored green from glacial flour), and great hiking trails.

One of the things we've tried to do more of lately is visit with friends along our way. These have included family friends near Tacoma, and Jeannette's good friend Betsy, who was maid of honor at our wedding 35 years ago.

We visited Betsy and her husband Rick at their cabin on Lake Coeur d'Alene in Idaho, cruising up the lake for dinner and hanging out in floats strung behind their party barge. Stories of old times and new filled our days there.

Leaving Idaho, we headed east into Montana. More about that in our next blog update!