Olympic National Park

Olympic National Park in the northwest corner of Washington is a large park whose main attractions are not connected by roads. It can take hours to drive from one area to another because they're all dead end roads. You actually have to leave the park and approach from a whole different side. We started off at Ruby Beach where we hiked down to the water.

Waiving to Daddy and Asher.

This rock was on sand, but a few times a wave came up and surrounded the rock. 

A new walking stick for Daddy? Just kidding!

Journey was doing so well crossing on this tree, but a rogue wave came and knocked her off. 

The water wasn't deep and she was able to just stand up, but she was wet and it scared her. 

Next we went to the HOH Rainforest. It was just as green and mossy as I had imagined.

The kids and I hiked the loop trail.

Just before we made it back to the parking lot, Asher spotted a deer. Next thing we know, 

there's six deer in front of us. There's one visible in the photo below.

We ate dinner at a diner in Forks, Washington, apparently the town from the Twilight books. There were vampire threat level signs all over the tiny town. The diner had a weird side room with flea market type items for sale including "forks from Forks". Weird. Afterwards we settled into our cute little cabin in La Push for the night. The kids' first priority was jumping on the bed as you can see.

Quileute Oceanside Resort has cabins of all sizes for rent right next to the beach. Ours was just perfect. Our bed was downstairs, while the kids each had their own beds in the loft above. It's a super cute cabin arrangement with a half bath and small kitchen.

In the morning we walked to the beach from our cabin.

I was surprised Journey wanted to cross on a log again, but she did.

That tree is just enormous. Here's Asher standing inside of it.

She found a heart shaped piece of shell.

Headed back to the cabin.

Delicate forget-me-nots line the road to Olympic.

We arrived at the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center to find out that a recent snow prevented us from being able to see that section of the park. Bummer! The kids earned their Junior Ranger badges and I quickly hiked the trails nearby.

The ranger suggested we check out Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge, so that's where we went next.