Day 1: Drive from Santa Cruz area to Olympic Peninsula
Tuesday & Wednesday, August 24, 2004

Tuesday was a driving day, nothing too eventful. We got out of the Bay Area without hitting much traffic, in part thanks to Pat, our neighbor, who happened to be driving ahead of us on Summit Road. As he turned on Old Santa Cruz Rd, the road you take to bypass Highway 17, he honked at us to stop, telling us that there was a major accident on 17. We followed him and rejoined 17 just at the tail end of the problem. Excellent! Thank you, Pat.

We reached Roseburg, Oregon at around 7pm and checked into the Quality Inn for $60. We asked the guy at the counter for a good pizza place and he recommended Abby's Legendary Pizza. Sadly, it wasn't very good. I suppose it could still be legendary, though, if there are legends about how not-so-good it is. We found a Cold Stone ice cream for dessert, and it was right next to a pizza place that looked much better (called Pizza Schmitza). Next time we're in Roseburg, we'll try that. We watched the Olympics in the evening, which is much more painful when you can't watch it through TiVo.

Walendo came up with the idea of buying tires for the Expedition while in Oregon, where they have no sales tax. We need them soon anyway, so why not save the tax? On Wednesday morning we called a few places and it turned out no one had them in stock, but we found one local place (Basin Tire) that had them for $20 less per tire who could order them from Portland. We told him we were heading up that way and could we get them there, but he said it was a warehouse only. Then he said that we could get the tires at any Costco, which we hadn't thought of, so that was nice. We called Costco, and it turned out they didn't have them in stock either and would have to order them. Since the price was about the same as Basin Tire, we called the guy back, told him about Costco and said we'd rather give him the business for being so helpful. So he's going to order them and when we back come through Roseburg on our way back, we'll stop and have them put on. He didn't even ask us for a credit card to make the order, which was nice. (Big O would have required that.) It's cool that it turned out a local place had the best prices and was the most friendly, so it's nice to be able to use them.

The drive through Oregon was raining a lot of the time, sometimes coming down in sheets so you could barely see the road. It wasn't constant, though, and part of the time the sun was out, so the driving was less tiring than it could have been. The skies were pretty impressive for much of the way — I kept wanting to get out just to take photos of the skies to have them "in stock." We agreed that if you lived here and it rained like this all the time, though, it would get depressing.

We had our hotel reservation in Port Angeles, so we weren't worried about time. So when we passed the Woodburn outlet centers south of Portland, we decided to stop and do some more sales-tax-free shopping. Walendo needed some more sneakers and I wanted to get some fleece, and we both found good deals. In all the stores, the sales people were very helpful and friendly. What could be better: shopping with friendly people and without sales tax? We liked the Woodburn outlet.

Other than that, we just made our way through Oregon and Washington on Highway 5, up to the Olympic Peninsula. People in Oregon seemed to be exceptionally good about getting over to the right after passing, which we greatly appreciated. Unfortunately, the speed limits are ridiculously low and the highway is two lanes even near cities (except Portland), so it was still a little frustrating to drive there. Washingtonian drivers, on the other hand, seemed to be especially bad about sitting in the left lane, not passing and not moving right, oblivious to the lines of cars stuck behind them. Even though the speed limits are a bit more reasonable and the highway is 3 lanes for longer stretches, we still found it much more frustrating driving in Washington. At least the scenery was pretty.

When we got to Olympia, we bore left and headed onto the peninsula. After a short time the highway transitions to a 2-lane road (one in each direction), and it quickly starts to feel like mountain recreation area with lots of wood signs. :-) We stopped for dinner in Hoodsport along the Hood Canal. There was one restaurant right on the water but no cars were parked there, and another one across the street that had lots of cars. We chose the more popular one, but it turned out the reason for the popularity was that it was bingo night at the bar. Only one other couple was eating! We had so-so clam chowder and a burger that had both mayo and thousand island dressing, even though I asked for no mayo. Sigh. I wasn't that hungry, so I ate what I could and Walendo had the rest. Oh well. As we were finishing, an older woman came by and asked if we were playing bingo. We asked some clueless questions and she told us it was free to play, so we said sure. She came back to explain that the round we were play was called a "flag round" where you have to get a corner plus a diagonal. That was nice of her to involve us and explain the rules. The next round was a regular round. We played two rounds and didn't win either time, but Walendo pointed out that we did about the same as most everybody else, so we couldn't complain. It was kinda fun to join in with the local crowd.

As we made our way around to Port Angeles, it became "magic hour" when the light becomes soft and beautiful and the scenery lit up. We were driving along the water (the Hood Canal) and at times passed by some cool looking marshes or piers that would have been nice to photograph. I'm looking forward to shooting in this area. Lots of water and cools skies, so there's a lot to work with.

George called while we were driving along just to know where we were and to welcome us to "God's Country." He's from this area, so I don't think he's entirely unbiased, but we see what he means.

We checked into our hotel in Port Angeles — a plain old Super 8, which helps us save money. Hotels are expensive here, hard to find one under $100 and we're paying $70 with AAA. The room is fine except it had no available outlets, how dumb is that? Fortunately, Walendo always travels with the double-wide power strip, so we unplugged something and plugged in the power strip and presto, we have about 10 outlets. Of course, they're all in use right now.

We'll be here for four nights, three days. Our plan is to drive the peninsula and visit the Hoh Rain Forest tomorrow (when it's supposed to have partial rain). Friday we'll go kayaking — it's supposed to be nicer out, and maybe it'll be less crowded on a week day incase we decide to go with a guide. Saturday, we'll hike at Hurricane Ridge — also supposed to be a nicer day, but we'll see.

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