July 2019
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Picture Frame Falls
Mt. Rainier National Park |
As we continued our journey towards Alaska. We had to make stops in Washington for the National Parks. Although we didn't have time to do all in the state. We found a campground between Highway 5 & Mt. Rainer on Mayfield Lake. We could leave RV there and just take truck to explore Mt. Rainer.
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Our relaxing campspot at Harmony Lakeside RV Park
on Mayfield Lake |
Next day we headed out to the Mt. Rainier National Park. It was overcast with the occasional showers. We still had hope that we'd see the mountain. As we drove around the park we thought we'd catch glimpses but the cloud cover never gave us a good photo.
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Narada Falls
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We love waterfalls and could bore you with all the different photos of them we took in the park.
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You KNOW Randy had to take this road. Hmmm, sign with rock falling from overhead ...sure, looks like fun!?!
 | Ok, one way so SHOULDN'T meet another vehicle!
Rickseeker Point Road
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Paradise Visitor Center
Parking lot was so full, Randy dropped Joyce off then went to park. Only spot was about 1/2 mile DOWN HILL from visitor center. Due to no cell service, he had to hike back up to visitor center to find Joyce. |
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Huge visitor center and lots of people!
 | Yep, there it is, in the background is Mt. Rainier!
(Anyway that's what they said!😕)
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| So many beautiful wildflowers along roadways. |
We continued our trek north making a detour to the west a bit, so we could go to another park, Olympic. We found a campground right on the water, at Port Townsend Washington.
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The blue dot is Port Townsend, Washington.
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The Keystone Ferry going to Coupesville. There are 2 ferries that make the round trip daily. One we would later take with the RV. You can see opening in back where they load the vehicles.
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Yes the campground was right next to the parking lot for restaurants and the marina. But WHAT A VIEW!! That's the back end of our rv on right and if you look in center you can see a cruise ship going by. And of course as you can see in previous pic, we watched the ferries. They left Port Townsend every hour and half, during the day.
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| Point Wilson Lighthouse |
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| Love this pic. The water, the flowers, and 2 deer walking on shoreline. |
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| Enjoyed seeing all the birds along the shore. Heron and Bald Eagle. |
Our main reason for traversing up western side of Pugent Sound was to go over to Olympic National Park. So we made the hour drive from Port Townsend over to Port Angeles to the main Visitor Center. We've learned in our National Park geekness, to not only stop for Randy's cancelation stamp in his park Passport book, but to gather information before touring a park. As we enjoy the wildlife, we always ask the rangers where's the best possible place to see the animals in the park. It's really helped knowing where to look, even with "ol' eagle-eye Randy".
(Sadly, due to COVID in 2020, a lot of visitor centers are closed or reduced hours.)
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Randy standing next to huge 650 year old Douglas-fir slab.
The age ring tags on tree slab show from center-out...
1349-Tree begins, Indians live here
1492-Columbus "discovers" New World
1620-Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock
1776-Declaration of Independence signed
1872- Yellowstone, first National Park created
1938- Olympic National Park created
 | This 3D map shows the vastness of the park, almost a million acres. The red dot is the Olympic Visitor Center near north entrance to the park. There are not many roads thru the rugged terrain.
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 | What a spectacular view from Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center!
Elevation 5,242 feet. In the winter of 1998-99 they had 62 feet of snow! Up to July in the year of 2019, they had 18 feet of snow here.
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 | Madison Falls
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 | Blue dot is Cape Flattery
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| We decided to drive on out to the further Northwestern point of Washington. Driving the road was almost like being on a rollercoaster as had so many sways and dips. We assumed it was from all the huge logging trucks using the highway. Glad we had left the RV in Port Townsend!
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 | | Cape Flattery Big Chair at Neah Bay Washington |
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As we headed back to Townsend we saw there was a town named "Joyce". So of course had to go there!
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Pink highlighted line (top left) shows ferry path.
We had checked into taking a ferry from Port Angeles to Vancouver Island, then from there another ferry over to Vancouver. Umm, nope not in our budget. However Joyce did find we could take a ferry from Port Townsend to Coupeville Washington. The price was well worth not having to drive south, around Puget Sound and then back north. BIG plus was not having to drive RV thru Seattle! It saved us a days time also, as we needed to get to Alaska before snow started flying!
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| The line-up to board the ferry. |
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They know how to pack all the vehicles in. There were more cars down on other side of walls, plus motorcycles in front of us.
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TIGHT SQUEEZE!!
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There was so much to see, we hated that it was soon time to get below to your vehicle.
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We saw all sorts of ships, boats and even swimming Harbor Seals,
as we crossed the Puget Sound.
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Point Hudson RV Park, from the ferry.
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It was almost sad to say goodbye to Port Townsend. The quaint town, the wildlife, and watching the marine traffic made such a wonderful stay. Joyce had even asked how much snow the area got in winter. (It wasn't much, but they did get some. So Joyce crossed it off the list of settling here.)
The state of Washington has so much natural beauty to enjoy, we wished we could have stayed longer. We were so blessed the weather stayed nice and we saw so much more than we've shared here in the blog. We hope to someday go back and explore more, such as the San Juan Islands. But for now it's, (cue the John Wayne movie music) 🎵 "North to Alaska"! |
