Epic Roadtrip Journal: 6/20/11 Olympic National Park

I woke up this morning and learned that sunrise was not a possibility due to intense cloud cover (yet again), so I went RIGHT back to sleep. We got up around 7:30, packed the tent up, and fled to the south eastern part of the park. We parked at a double trail head area (is that a phrase?) and had two short, but really fun hikes: Grove of the Patriarchs and Silver Falls. The former was a woody area with huge fir trees, almost as big as the Sequoias in California. It was a fun, relaxing hike, which ended with me hugging a 20 foot diameter tree.

Awwwww

The second hike went down to a cool, SLIPPERY waterfall area. There was a bridge and a lot of mist, which made for some really good pictures.

"We enjoy waterfalls."

We then drove north, along the side of Mt. Rainier (it was still covered in fog, so we couldn't see that fucking mountain) and on towards Olympic National Park over parts of the Puget Sound. We stopped for lunch and had some strawberry lemonade and I devoured a huge breakfasty meal (I love breakfast served all day). Then we drove into the northern part of the park, up an awesome-to-drive road along Hurricane Ridge. It was really fun to drive, and we got AMAZING views of the Puget Sound and of the incredible, snow-topped mountain range. The mountains, including the tallest, Mt. Olympus (guys, that's where the Gods live!), were gorgeous.

Standard Severino move right there

I was freaking out from how fucking beautiful they were. There were some black tail deer amidst the snow by the visitor center, but I'm still jaded by buffalo and bears in Yellowstone, so I didn't care too much for these boring-in-comparison animals.
The park itself is enormous. I didn't realize it, but most of the day required that we drive around the park to get to our campsite at Kalaloch beach. It was a LOT of driving, but luckily everything was beautiful, and there were tons of fireworks shops, and it was really fun to drive, so I didn't mind. I would have liked to hike more, but we just stopped for lookouts at Crescent Lake.
We managed to walk around at Ruby Beach, on the FUCKING PACIFIC COAST. There were tons of rocks to climb, and it was a beautiful landscape, so I was amped, naturally.

The ocean is on the wrong side of the land, but it's ok, it's still pretty

The Sun was also close to setting, so shadows made for some really cool pictures. I spent most of my time climbing the huge rock structures, because it was the most unsafe thing I could think of doing. Sometimes, while I was on top of the rocks, the waves would crash and spritz me with water: I felt like I was in Fantasia. That one with all the brooms? Yeah. Hilarious.

I am a pose machine

On the way back to the car we picked some wild raspberries. They tasted a little unsafe (that is a taste?), but whatever, I still haven't dropped a barf.
Then we drove to our campsite, which I had booked a while back. It was literally the last site with a beach overlook. And holy shit, when we arrived at the site, I almost crapped myself. The view from our site was amazing: RIGHT ON THE BEACH. It was cloudy, so sunset over the ocean wasn't possible, but who cares; it is still an incredible view.

This is the view we have to deal with from our campsite? UGH. FINE. I GUESS it's ok.

After setting up the tent, we made some dinner over the fire. Our mission was to use everything up, since it is our last camping night. MY personal mission was to dump the rest of the propane into the fire, since we can't take it back to the east coast with us. I did a good job of "accelerating" the fire with it. The dinner was good, but I'm just still so pumped about our perfect campsite location to even think about it. Also, I'm fairly tired from driving all day and not getting a chance to nap. If I had to describe the day in one word, it would be: Pumped.