On this day we woke up from our camp site on Sandbeach and headed north around 830 in the morning. Our first stop on the list was Cannon beach which is a famous coastal view with mountainous rocks coming out of the ocean. This little town on the coast reminded us very much of the Cinque Terre region of Italy, due to the high coastline. It features a much broader beach base.
The breakfast place we ate at proved to be an amazing stop. It was called The Lazy Susan Cafe, and I highly recommend this place. It is a cute village style building which always has a long wait line for breakfast. Its food is high quality and the people exceptionally nice. This is owned by none other than who I assume would be a lady called Susan, who actually sat us after a half hour wait. While we waited we walked out to the beach to admire the amazing rock formations that we had seen so often in picture. This town is more iconic from above, where there are various overlooks in the area.
From this point we headed to the north part of the state and reached Astoria, Washington. This is the beginning of the Columbia River gorge from the ocean point heading Eastward.
To cross this inlet, requires driving over a massive bridge, which is one of the 5 largest and longest in the USA. This was purposefully planned as it was about a 5 mile bridge and the next stop on our site seeing itinerary for the day. Before we crossed however we decided to get groceries and supplies for the night. We had about a 4 hour drive left for us to arrive to the north west side of Olympic National Park.
The drive for the rest of the day was slow but smooth, as the coastal drive started to wind through tree lines instead of the ocean, but throughout the day we enjoyed the different scenic roads. Our last stop of the night was at a place called Second Beach which is the northwest part of the park on the coast. This is about 45 minutes from where we decided to camp. We were fortunate enough to get a campsite at the Klahowya Campground as it was our LAST resort in the park for available sites (within daylight driving distance). It cost 17$ per night so we decided to stay there two nights since we were going to do hiking the next day. The small town of Beaver is where we stopped for some snacks and gas that evening as well.
Now, Second Beach is a great stopping point for the park, and it has beautiful views and amazing wildlife. The campsite itself was nice too as we were near the rainforest region of the park. That day we also toured the rainforrest part of the park, called the Hoh forrest. We walked through the short nature trails and it was quite unlike anything we’ve seen in the United states up to this point. The nature trail is called the Hoh Rainforest Interpretive Loop. and there is a relatively less used campsite there, but we decided not to stay so we could continue north and stay closer to the destination for the next day.
We headed back to camp and cooked dinner for the night. It was damp and chilly that night, so we had to bundle up, but we were able to sleep comfortably, and get an early start the next morning.
Expenses
35 breakfast cannon beach
15.41 gas
65.50 grocery
17.13 gas
19.80 snack
34 camping
Total – 186.84
MILES DRIVEN – 389