August 4, 2011

August 4, 2011

Bill made pancakes for breakfast this morning and we sadly said goodbye to the cabin on the ocean that we so enjoyed. We hustled out to Beach 4 to meet Ranger Marie for the tidal pool talk at 9:30. Beach 4 had many sea stacks and low rocks that housed thousands of sea creatures visible at low tide. Next we traveled to Ruby Beach which was probably the most scenic beach we had visited with many large sea stacks, a river making a large pool and lots of drift logs along the more narrow shore. The kids skipped the flat round ocean smoothed rocks while we strolled on the foggy beach.

We drove inland along the Hoh river to the Hoh rain forest area – one of the most popular in the park. I was enthusiastic to walk the “Hall of Mosses” trail and would have loved to have waited for the 2:00 ranger talk about mosses, but the family was less than enthusiastic. Bill said the Hoh area was a little ho hum compared to the great Sams rain forest trail yesterday.

Lunch was in Forks, WA – pizza as Ellis had wanted for days. The motto of the Pacific Pizza was “love at first bite” which is fitting as this is where the Twilight movies were filmed and the city of Forks is capitalizing on the popular series.

Tonight we are staying at the Sol Duc Resort known for their natural hot springs pools. Water was warm. We hiked to see the Sol Duc Falls this evening. Our cabin is along the Sol Duc River and there is a picnic table and bench swing next to the river. It is a nice place, but we all agree that we really liked the place we stayed last night Kalaloch along the ocean.