July 16, 2013: Olympic Peninsula

 Jack found a golf course a half hour away in Port Townsend at the northeastern tip of the Olympic Peninsula.  The layout was nothing fancy with occasional glimpses of the bay beyond, but it was a beautiful day and it felt great to be out on the course.  It helped that I shot one of my best 9's ever (we're not talking about what happened on the back nine). 

July 15, 2013: Olympic Peninsula

Our first stop was 2nd Beach - there are six beaches with numbers, named by some unimaginative National Park employee.  Here we got to climb barnacle encrusted rocks to find tidepools with loads of sea urchins, anemones and starfish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up was Ruby Beach that was supposed to be a pick sand beach, but I couldn't find anything pink.  The beach was spectacular even without pink sand with sea stacks offshore and piles of gray logs along the cliffs.

We continued north up the western coast of the Olympic Peninsula to the Hoh Rain Forest where we walked a one mile trail through the forest of giant Sitka Spruce, cedar and hemlocks where huge fallen logs provide nourishment for sprouting trees.

Incredibly, one tree trunk started 20 feet in the air with the tree roots descending from there because it originally grew on a 20' diameter fallen tree that eventually disintegrated.

 

 

We followed route 101 around the peninsula to the northern coast and got a campsite in Port Angeles.  The diesel prices are the same now that we are back into civilization, and surprisingly diesel is cheaper than regular gas and much less expensive than premium gas.

 

A great day from the beach to the rain forest.

July 13, 2013: Olympic Peninsula

When we left the Mt. Rainer National Park campground yesterday, our panel showed the batteries were depleted and there wasn't enough power to run the water pump correctly.  We had a Camping World look at it earlier in our trip, but we didn't trust their judgment that the batteries were fine, but the truck needed a new alternator.  We had let it go because we had electric in most campgrounds and it was only a problem if we wanted to camp without it for more than one night.  The owner of this campground used to have his own RV repair service, so we asked him to diagnose our problem. Turned out to be a bad cell in one of the batteries, but you cannot replace only one because the older battery will pull the new one down.  He called a local guy who happened to be in on his day off and we ran over so he could put in the two new batteries.  Relatively easy fix and a lot less expensive than we had paid for batteries in the past.

While doing laundry, I noticed a sign that one of the folks in the campground washed and waxed RVs.  I had done it before we left and we had stopped at a couple of do-it-yourself places with the extra tall bays to get off the worst of the bugs and road grime, but it was in need of some spit and polish.  They did it in a few hours for $100 - another great bargain, but an expensive day!

I made homemade red gravy (spaghetti sauce) with sausage and meatballs on our outdoor cook stove. 

This maintenance day was good for Jack because he had hurt his foot and hopefully a day of rest will help it heal before we get to Olympic National Park where there will be a lot of walking.