Washinton Coast

Now it is time for part two of the adventure.  After we left Jim and Sandi's we headed for the Washington coast to a little town called Moclips.  It is only a town because there in one store in the vicinity of houses and I guess that counts as a town.  Own family rented a room at a small motel on the ocean while Jim and Sandi and the Bollocks had a apartment across the street.  Each set of accommodations was adequate but not glamorous by any means.

Once we arrived, we immediately headed out to the beach.  The weather was a bit windy the first day, but you don't get nice weather like this in this part of Washington too often so we couldn't complain.

The beach had the softest sand and went on and on.  There was a way to access the beach by car and we actually got a chance to drive down it later on in the week.

Action shot of James trying to catch up with his cousins.

Matthew loved taking his shoes off and getting sand in every place imaginable.

I mentioned the wind...poor Matthew had sand blowing all up in his face but you could not drag him from the beach.

The next day we headed off to Lake Quinalt and had amazing weather yet again.  The lake and lodge are very cool to see and have great spots to have lunch.

Here is the family on a hike.  We hiked on a short hike near the lodge and James walked the entire way, which is a big deal.  I think it had a lot to do with his cousins running in front of him, but I sure was happy.

Salmon berries, mountain blueberries, and mountain huckleberries all were in season so the hike consisted of a lot of eating while hiking.

Here is the largest spruce tree in the world (or so the sign says).  It does not look that big in this picture, but if you look at the base you can see how big it is compared to a normal adult.

Here are the adorable crew we dragged around all week.

After a day at the lake we headed back to the beach and the sun was perfect for some pictures.

Sooooo cute.

The sunset was great for picture taking.  The end to another great day.

 

The next day we headed off to Port Townsend with a couple of stops in the middle.

First stop was to Ruby Beach.  There was no wind the it was about 75 degrees.  You do not see more than a handful of these days each year along the rainy coast in Washington.

The mom's hanging out along rocks.

Matthew is never far from the blanket and dog he sleeps with...even on a hike.

Then we stopped at the Hoh rainforest where it was, you guessed it, sunny and beautiful.

James was getting pretty tired and it was painful to get him to walk so on the shoulders he goes.  I went along the trail for a while like this, but it got old after about 30 minutes.  When we got back in the car he was fast asleep in about 30 seconds.

 

The next day I flew out of Seattle for work in southern Idaho.  The family stayed a about three more days and got a chance to visit hurricane ridge.

Here are the kiddos at the top.

I guess Sarah went over this ridge hoping to pop a squat but found these guys.  The mountain goats apparently can be quite aggressive and have gored and killed a guy a couple of years ago.  I don't think Sarah or Brenda knew that otherwise they would have kept the kids farther away.

Matthew obviously had a great time.

 

All in all I got to take three days off and vacation with the family, but did not have to take a single vacation day since I worked through the weekend.  I should try and schedule a bit more of that in the future because it was a whole lot of fun.