We went to the Olympic Peninsula for the day on Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend. For you readers Back East, the standard elementary school map depiction of Washington state resembles a hitchhiker’s fist. The “thumb” is the Olympic Peninsula. There are a few small cities, but most of the peninsula is occupied by Olympic National Park. This park encompasses numerous ecosystems: The rocky Pacific coast; a temperate-zone rain forest; and the Olympic Mountains.
The fastest (usually) way to get to the Olympic Peninsula from the Seattle area is to take the Edmonds-Kingston ferry. Bring patience and some reading material for the wait. At peak times you could be sitting in your car for up to two hours before driving onto the boat. Walk-on or bicycle passengers often don’t need to wait, but transit options are limited on the other side. Luckily, we waited about an hour to board the ferry on Saturday. The crossing to Kingston takes 1/2 hour or less. There’s a snack bar, and the bow of the boat is open so you can take pictures or (if you must) do the cheesy “I’m king of the world” pose from the movie Titanic.
Our first destination after getting off the ferry was Sequim (pronounced skwim) and lunch. We ate at a breakfast/lunch restaurant called the Oak Table Café. After that, we drove up to the Dungeness Spit National Wildlife Refuge. Unfortunately for us, many others had the same idea. Parking was non-existent, so we left. Since the main attraction of Sequim, the lavender fields, weren’t in bloom yet, we headed west.
Port Angeles is the largest city on the northern peninsula. We often visit on July 4 weekend for its community parade and fireworks. It also has a ferry terminal for day trips to Victoria, British Columbia. Port Angeles’s main industry back in the day was logging. (Word to the wise: Do not openly complain about the clear-cut hills you saw on the way into town lest you want to get a broken jaw.) These days the biggest attraction is the National Park. One of the biggest draws for us was Olympic Bagel, which made the best bagels we’d found in Washington. Alas, it closed since our last visit. Since we were headed in the right direction, we drove into the park to go to Hurricane Ridge.
Much of the high country in Olympic National Park is inaccessible by car alone. Hurricane Ridge is an exception. We found ourselves in line again to enter the park. We imagined the park ranger at the entrance doing triage on the tourists:
- Subaru with occupants wearing hiking boots and backpacks: Welcome, have fun.
- Minivan with kids in the back: Welcome, but stay near the visitors’ center and keep the munchkins within reach.
- BMW convertible with occupants wearing miniskirts and spike heels: Where do you think you are, Bellevue? Get out of here!
It was very early in the season to be on Hurricane Ridge. Snowdrifts still covered the hills and the periphery of the parking area. Cars and the mere mortals therein were blocked from going farther than the visitors’ center. There were some deer grazing on the patches of open meadow. Most of what we saw were tourists ignoring the signs to stay off the patches of open meadow nearest the visitors’ center. After we used the restrooms and bought some iced tea at the snack bar, we went back to town. Julian drove down, but he wisely curbed his impulse to play Grand Prix driver on the hairpin curves. (I don’t want to replace Die Frau just yet.)
The consolation prize after a frequently frustrating day was dinner at Bella Italia in Port Angeles. This is our favorite dinner place in town, even if it’s immortalized in the Twilight books as where Edward and Bella had their first date. The food is always excellent. We both had the porchetta, stuffed rolled pork loin. Julian asked the waitress if our dish would resemble the porchetta we saw in France (below). She assured us it would be less whole-hog.
La porchetta vera.
Luckily, we didn’t have long to wait to catch the ferry home. The rest of our morning travel companions either took a later ferry or stayed on the Peninsula for the weekend. For a change on one of these day trips, I was in bed by 11 pm.
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