Trip to Pacific Northwest 2017: Day 3/8

Good Morning

We were off to a slow start this morning. We had breakfast in our hotel again, but this time there was no mom making waffles for her clan of kids. I headed straight to the waffle maker, made a messed up looking waffle, and surrendered the waffle maker over to Jeremy. We both ended up having a waffle and sausage links. He had biscuits and gravy as well.

On the Road

We got on the road headed towards Olympic National Park. We passed through Tacoma, a sprawled out city. I could see the hospital where I was born from the highway. We continued North, driving along the bay, eventually reaching a town called Port Angeles.

The bridge that replaced "Galloping Gertie" across the bay outside of Tacoma.

We grabbed lunch at a small restaurant called Chestnut Cottage. Jeremy got a club ciabatta with garlic Gorgonzola fries and a sweet tea to wash it all down with. I got chicken stir fry with water. Both meals were yummy.

Jeremy and his lunch

My lunch and I

Olympic National Park

After chowing down, we drove into Olympic National Park. We stopped at an overlook, climbed a short trail and were greeted by a huge platform where we could see a huge sea of evergreens. We cracked a few jokes about how Washington really is the evergreen state, and then went back to the car. We stopped at a few more places and marveled at the mountain tops and the sea of trees. It wasn’t a long drive until we made it to the top and realized there was no where else to drive. I took a couple photos of the mountain tops from the peak while Jeremy ran inside to the visitors center to check it out. After I was done taking photos, I took another look at the map and realized that there weren’t a lot of roads to drive on in this park. If we wanted to drive on a different road, we would have to leave the park and enter again at a different point, which was no big deal considering I have the America the Beautiful pass.

Olympic National Park

Olympic National Park

Olympic National Park

Olympic National Park

Olympia, Washington

When Jeremy came back, we considered a few options and decided to leave the park and head down to Olympia. It was a long drive down, but we played a lot of music, took videos of the beautiful drive, and made the best of it, despite the fact that people don’t know how to drive at a decent speed on a two lane highway.

We arrived in Olympia, and we headed for downtown, not sure of where anything was. We ended up parking at a grocery store close to the heart of downtown. We got ice cream. Jeremy got mocha ice cream with nuts, and I got coffee ice cream.

We ate our ice cream on the docks behind the grocery store and took in the sight of the beautiful bay. We found one of those tourist spyglass set ups that allowed us to view things on the other side of the body of water. I took a few images utilizing it, got a few shots of Jeremy looking through it, and then we headed back to the car.

Jeremy and the spyglass

View through the spyglass

We went and parked downtown, and immediately got the vibe that we shouldn’t leave the car parked there due the bad gut feeling we both had about our surroundings. We walked about two blocks before turning around and going back to the car.

We drove around a bit, figuring out where we should go. I asked Jeremy to pull over so I could get photos of the capitol building across the water. 

Olympia Capitol Building

We found a place to park, and figured out where to have dinner. We walked from our car to King Solomon’s Reef. It was a place downtown, but away from the sketchy area by a smidgen.

Jeremy got fried chicken and waffles, with a very interesting grape soda. I got a Monte Carlo sandwich with fries and a hot chocolate.

We went back to the park on the water side to grab a few poke stops before leaving town. I drove home, which was my first time driving the rental car. We got to our hotel room, watched Will and Grace, and went to sleep.