In keeping tradition with the day trips on days off together, Samuel and I decided to head out to the coast. I haven't actually seen the Pacific Ocean itself from Washington yet. We were going to go to Victoria, but we decided we wanted to give it a little more time than just a day, and I had a meeting in the middle of our second day off. Plus, getting to Victoria is kind of a pain. It is just far enough away and costs just enough to get there that staying for only a day seems a bit like ripping yourself off.
Anyway, we decided to go to Westport, WA, which is on Grey's Harbor's South Bay. It was highly recommended by a TripAdvisor submitter as a great day trip from Seattle. I'll be honest- I'm not really sure why it was so highly recommended. I had fun, but there wasn't a lot to do. And it isn't like a day at the beach in Florida or California. Instead of sand, we have rocks. Instead of sun and warm weather, we had 65 degrees with a good steady breeze. Pretty, yes, but too cold to enjoy the beach.
Anyway, we had fun. We went to the Maritime Museum first. It wasn't that interesting to me, but would probably be really interesting to someone with connections to the Coast Guard. The coolest parts were the skeletons of sea creatures they had in little buildings outside and the replica of the gigantic light in the lighthouse. This thing was seven feet high and stunning. It is a french design that magnifies all the light into a little beam, and that is what the lighthouse shoots out. The light from it can be seen 25 miles away. All in all, the Maritime Museum was interesting and only 5 dollars.
From there, we went out to the lighthouse. This lighthouse is the tallest in Washington State, and the 3rd tallest on the West Coast. It was really pretty. For some reason I didn't quite understand (something about whirlpools and jettys), the coast line is expanding. When the lighthouse was built, it was something like 480 feet from the coast. Now, it is more than a mile. And some little old ladies planted trees like 50 years ago, so now there is a forest between the lighthouse and the water. Kind of funny.
We climbed to the top, which was fun. That was 5 dollars too. We got to see the light at the top and ask a lot of questions. It was pretty cool. I'd recommend going to Westport for that, if you're close.
As that was all we'd had planned in Westport and we'd only been there 2 hours, we were at a loss for what to do until our bellies started rumbling and we started smelling fish in the air. We had to eat seafood while we were by the coast, right? Right.
We found a place called The One-Eyed Crab right across from the marina. We shared some bacon wrapped oysters and a big bowl of prawns, crab legs, and clams in garlic broth. Way too expensive, but delicious! With full bellies and now at a complete loss of what to do (our GPS couldn't even help us!), we decided to head to a town we'd only seen on a map the day before.
Humptulips, Washington.
Wikipedia tells me this might be Native American for "hard to pole" which doesn't really help this place's cause for being well-named. The town is tiny- like 216 people. We saw two of them. Besides the sign, where we stopped and took pictures, there was a gas station and 3 houses. The rest of the town of Humptulips must have been in hiding that day. And with a name like Humptulips, who wouldn't hide? :)
We continued farther north to Lake Quinault. It is right on the Quinault Rain Forest border and it is super pretty. I thought I read somewhere that it is Washington's largest lake, but I can't find a source now to back that up. We saw the World's Lagest Spruce Tree, which is right next to the lake, and even dipped our feet in! It wasn't quite as cold as the Pacific, but still way too cold to go swimming in.
After sitting by the lake for a while, we decided to head home. Washington is so damn pretty! I learned today that it is the only state with all 5 temperate zones- from rain forest to desert. I can't wait to explore them all!
Next week, we're going to explore the shit out of the Olympic Peninsula and Victoria over 4 days. I'm pretty stoked!
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