Day 37 - Travel to the Olympic Peninsula

Saturday, July 16, 2016

Posted from: Forks, WA (of Twilight fame) - Forks 101 RV Campground

Miles driven: 292

Total trip miles: 6,409

I got up this morning and was able to get four loads of laundry done before we left. We hadn't done laundry since Yosemite, so this was a great thing to get done. The laundry facility at the campground was clean and really cheap!

We then got on the road to Forks, WA. Forks is the town where the Twilight books were based and movies were filmed. I read the first book, but never saw the movies, so the whole "drama" of the place was lost on us.

We took Interstate 5 through Portland/Vancouver and then switched over to Highway 12 to get to Highway 101. Again. Matt thinks he will never get off this road. 

We needed fuel, and about that time saw a sign for Mt St Helens, the volcano that erupted in 1980. We exited there, fueled up, and ventured five miles west to the first (of many) visitor centers. It was very interesting to look at the pictures and read through the timeline of the days before during and after. 

There was a view point here, but the mountain was not visible today due to clouds. We decided not to venture closer to the other visitor centers. We left and returned back to our planned route to Forks. 

As we drove through Aberdeen, we noticed that the port seemed to be on fire. Then we noticed a wedding overlooking the port...with a great view of the port on fire. Probably not what they had in mind. Then we saw firetrucks and emergency vehicles from all surrounding areas pouring into the port. Yikes! Otherwise, Aberdeen was a cute town.

Here we are at our new cozy home for the next three nights...Did I mention cozy? Yeah, and this was after moving as close as we could to the other side of our site. Our outdoor kitchen door almost hit their side mirror. Our backdoor landed on their sewer. Cuteness.

But to be fair, this was the only site in the campground like this and they offered to move us to a much larger site. We declined because this one had a pretty decent back yard with a picnic table and fire pit. The larger site had neither a picnic table or fire pit. We decided we would be happy right where we were.

It was chilly, so we enjoyed hot chocolate around the fire. It doesn't look like it, but it is actually after 9:00 pm in this picture. It stays light fairly late around here in the summer.