Day 12 - Mt Rainier to Olympic National Park, Wa

Today we couldn’t get enough of Oregon and had to go back. First, we rode out of Mt. Rainier at 7am,

with the plan to get to the laundromat in Morton when it opened at 8am. 

We arrived early and the laundromat was open a bit early also. We loaded up the machines, then Jerry and Michele walked around the corner to a coffee shop for breakfast. With food in our bellies, we transferred clothing to the dryers and waited for 25 minutes. Everything dried quickly, so we packed up 20 minutes early and headed out.

 We were amazed by the massive logging plants, surely no trees could be left! It’s big industry here, like it or not. A few times during the day we got a whiff of a bad odor and Rob announced that it was a paper mill or something similar. Sure enough we came upon a plant soon thereafter.

Since we were ahead of schedule, we chose our later lunch stop, crossing back into Oregon. We arrived at Fultano’s Pizza in Glatskanie, OR. The crust on our pizza was really crispy and many locals were there enjoying the same.

After lunch, we headed south on 101 towards our sightseeing destination of Cannon Beach, OR by way of Astoria. Michele was really excited to see two of the filming locations of one of her favorite movies, The Goonies. Traffic was heavy with the highway going through the towns. 

We arrived at Cannon Beach around 2pm. Unexpectedly, it was a thriving beach town and everyone was there on vacation. We naively thought a weekday wouldn’t be so busy, and when Rob was researching places to park, they seemed plentiful on Google Maps. In reality, every street spot was taken and most of the parking lots as well. We saw a sign for RV and oversized vehicle parking several blocks from the beach. We lucked out and got a long spot for the bike and trailer in between RVs. Rob was convinced we’d get a ticket since the spot said RV parking only. Michele thought we’d be ok since the original sign said “and other oversized vehicles”. We walked to the beachfront and found Jerry, who had lucked out with a closer street parking spot. We walked down to the sand to find Hay Stack rocks that were featured so prominently in the movie. 

The beach area was really interesting with a large, calm tide area and violent waves further out. It was cold so not too many kids were in the water. Many families and kids were playing in the sand. With pictures taken, we walked back to the bikes. No ticket! As we left the RV parking lot, we saw a Mini with the most beautiful wooden trailer behind it. We mutually admired each others’ trailers.

Back on the road, we had to backtrack to Astoria, but then took the bridge and headed North on 101. Out of the busy beach towns, we soon found sweeping curves along the coastline and had little to no traffic. With about 3 hours to go before we reached Olympic, we enjoyed the relatively quiet roads and marsh scenery.

A British car club was out taking a ride.

We stopped for fuel about 100 miles away from Olympic and Michele put on her heated gear again. The skies were really cloudy and it was only in the 60s. The rest of the ride was quiet with little traffic as we forged north amongst heavy evergreens. Luckily we did not encounter any deer.

Around 6:45 we arrived at the Kalaloch Lodge, checked into our cabin, and went to dinner. Jerry and Michele commented on how tired they were today, Michele said she was surprised since she only has to sit and look at scenery. After dinner, there were a few stars out so Rob grabbed his camera gear and headed to the beach. He came back not too long afterwards because there was too much light from the other cabins and people walking around with flashlights. Plus, the wind was picking up and rain was expected to begin overnight.

Tomorrow rain is expected all day, so we will play it by ear to see what we do, or not! We do plan to go to the Hoh Rainforest on one of our two full days here, if weather allows.