State 49: Washington pt. 1

Day 1: Travel day! Our flight out of Cincinnati was at 11am (Eastern) and we got to Washington around 5:30pm (Pacific). We ate at Black Bear Diner which has become a new tradition for me this year - ate there in Idaho, Arkansas and now Washington!  We drove a couple hours to get to our hotel, Ocean Star Inn in Sequim. (Did this so we didn’t have as long of a drive the next morning!) All in all… looooong travel day. 

Day 2: Olympic National Park

We started out the day with the scenic Hurricane Ridge drive which is part of Olympic National Park. 

After that we grabbed lunch at Granny’s cafe and headed to Madison Creek Falls. It was a short hike, only .2 miles with an elevation gain of about 46 feet. 

After that, we stopped at Lake Crescent and did a portion of the Moments in Time trail.  

We then headed to Sol Duc Falls and Mike and my poor mom go drenched in a downpour. I think it was a little more than we bargained for, but still pretty falls! 

Had Marble and Oak for dinner and stayed at Pacific Inn Motel in Forks, WA. 

Day 3: Olympic National park-Hoh rainforest

I had heard good things about the rainforest so we decided to start our morning there. (Mind you, this is Sunday of Labor Day weekend) I had heard you might have to wait 1-2 hours to get in to the park on busy days. I would say we got there around 8:45am AND WE DIDN’T MAKE IT INTO THE PARK UNTIL AFTER 12pm!!!! That’s 3.5 hours of waiting in the car!!! 

Had we known it was going to be that long, we would have probably just said “forget it” and moved on, but the GPS kept giving us different times. By the time we saw the official national park time markers we were in it for the long hull. I mean, if you’ve already wasted an hour and a half waiting, it can’t be that much longer, right?! (UGH!)

Once we got in the park we went straight for the Hall of Mosses trail which was actually pretty cool. Not sure it was worth the 3.5 hours, but it is what it is.  

The original plan was to also see Ruby Beach and Kalaloch Beach, and have lunch at one of the lodges, but the parking lots were FULL and we were over it by this point. 
We spent the rest of the day driving to our next destination and, since we didn’t have lunch, we had an early dinner at West Side Pizza. We stayed at Hilton Garden Inn Olympia. 

It was also my parents anniversary which makes me feel even worse! Horrible planning on my part- I knew lines could be long, but didn’t know they would be THAT long.