- Vacation 2002 -

Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, Vancouver Island and Seattle

On Day One, May 19^th, I flew into Seattle to join my mother on a trip around the Washington coast. Upon arriving, we took off immediately for Mt. Ranier and circled around it, meandering through the area with no definite plans. We spent the first night in Mossyrock at a quirky little place called The Mossyrock Inn.

Day Two of our adventures took us up to the Quinault rainforest and Lake Quinault Lodge. The rainforest was AMAZING and green. I really can’t even describe it, so go look at the pictures.

Day Three was spent wandering through several side roads, along the beaches, and the Hoh rainforest where we walked along the Hall of Mosses trail. (mosses, momma, not moses. A slight, but important, difference) We finally found the Lake Crescent Lodge, which was absolutely gorgeous.

There were way too many pictures on the Day Three page, so I've split them into 3 pages! Yikes! I wasn't really camera happy! I swear! There was just too much to take pictures of!!!

A few more (8) pictures of beach stuff, the world's second largest cedar tree, and Ruby Beach are here.

And the Hoh rainforest pictures.

Day Four and on to Port Angeles to catch the ferry to Victoria, British Columbia (Canada, eh). Butchart Gardens were wonderful and overwhelming – there’s just too much to take it all in.

After a night at Dunsmeir Lodge, we were off to catch the ferry on Day Five. Now, it turns out that there’s only ONE ferry a day leaving Vancouver Island for Anacortes, WA. You can go other places, but if you want to get to Anacortes, I recommend you make a ferry reservation (for a car) by 3pm the day before sailing. If you don’t do that, then you’ll be sitting at the ferry at 9am with a bag full of bakery goodies and a handful of Canadian change, and a chance to go to San Juan Island (because the ferry was full to Anacortes) like we were. But we had fun in San Juan – we saw a purple starfish, a lighthouse, and whales! OK, I saw whales, momma was driving and missed it (sorry momma).

Day Six, North Cascade Loop...

Day Seven, Seattle... we went to Pike Market, the Seattle Aquarium, and took the monorail to the Space Needle. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it was a long and exhausting day!