Journey to Orcas Island: 25th Wedding Anniversary Adventure: Day 1: The Long and Winding Road

Day One: The Long and Winding Road

Despite the late-night completion of last-minute preparations, we pulled out of our parking lot at a record-breaking -for us - 7:30 AM. After a short stop at the post office and the required Starbucks fueling, we were on the road - first scheduled stop: Seaside for breakfast.

Traffic through Portland was what one might expect during morning rush hour, but we persevered and eventually had Hwy 26 to the beach relatively to ourselves.

Two and a half hours later we pulled into the cozily-touristy downtown of Seaside where a brief exploration brought us to the popular PigsNCakes for breakfast. We quickly won over our veteran server Twilene and enjoyed a hearty breakfast - our last planned meal until arriving at our destination for the day - Lake Crescent Lodge on the north side of Olympic National Park in Washington.

After breakfast we headed north to Astoria and were soon leaving Oregon behind as we crossed over the Columbia river and into Washington on the Astoria-Megler bridge - only our second crossing since moving to Oregon in 1991. The crossing was marked by the fact that they were doing maintenance on the bridge and unlike in the past when debris would have been allowed to fall into the river below, an elaborate system of covers, temporary catchments and giant vacuums were in place to collect the dust, flakes and fragments for later disposal.

It only took 30 minutes or so of driving north on 101 and we were in unexplored territory at which point we were joined by our 'third companion' - Cleopatra, who came to us courtesy of a book-on-cd: Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff. She and an entourage of historic players were to be our welcomed on-again-off-again companions throughout the trip.

The highway wound its way along the shore of Willapa Bay, a large estuary north of the Columbia and far from the ocean - turning even further inland to cross the Willapa River at Raymond. Here we left 101 behind and turned west on 105 to skirt the north end of the bay and to return to the coast in an attempt to stay as close to the ocean as possible. We finally caught sight of the Pacific and stopped to take a walk on the beach at Cohassett where we came to appreciate Oregon's stricter laws against driving on the shoreline.

Highway 105 was forced to turn inland again at Grays Harbor - another large estuary, where it rejoins Hwy 101 at Aberdeen. Determined to continue a coastal route we turned west again on Hwy 109 along the north side of the bay eventually returning to the coast where it then headed north. We continued to follow 109 until it turned into gravel, "Primitive Road ahead" so the sign said helping to explain why we had seen so little traffic! Beware of Google Maps - and pay attention when the road line becomes REALLY small and light grey and is referred to as a BIAR - Bureau of Indian Affairs Road! Turns out 109 dead ends on the Quinault Indian Reservation. As we LATER found in Wikipedia: "Motorists are cautioned that it is not possible to traverse the entire reservation on Highway 109, in spite of what some online mapping services indicate."

We were forced to back track several miles to find an east bound spur that returned us to Hwy 101 shortly after which we crossed the Queets River and at which point we were officially on the Olympic Peninsula for the first time! The highway returned us to the coast for a stretch along the west side of Olympic National Park before curving gradually east to follow the Sol Duc River, eventually skirting the mountain-corralled Lake Crescent. After nearly 11 hours on the road we arrived at Lake Crescent Lodge (Google Maps gave us a travel time of 8hrs 8min including what turned out to be the dead-end 109 route).

As soon as we stepped out of the car we were washed with that deep silence that seems to permeate wild places and gracefully replaces the background white noise that constantly barrages one in urban settings and which often goes undetected until it is suddenly gone.

We walked to the historic lodge, formerly the Singer's Tavern when it first opened in 1916, to get checked in. Our room, Pyramid 302 was located in one of the out buildings a short walk from the main lodge, and was added to the site when the National Park Service took over the property in 1951. Before going to our room we made a

reservation for dinner and stopped off at the gift shop - fortunately - where a sign on the counter warned guests NOT to drink any water from any tap - a small detail that had NOT been mentioned when we checked in!

The lodge overlooks the 12 mile long Lake Crescent which formed when an ancient landslide dammed Indian Creek which then backed up to fill a basin carved out by glaciers during the last Ice Age. It is over 1000 feet deep in places and is surrounded by steep mountains covered with Cedar and Hemlock trees.

After settling into our room and taking a walk along the shoreline and out on the dock in front of the lodge, we returned to the lodge for dinner. The main floor of the lodge had the requisite dark wood, stone fireplace and elk heads. After a longer than expected wait - considering we had a reservation - we had dinner - marred by the 40min additional wait to get our entrees - a curry vegetable mix that turned out to be too spicy for Lyn and a delicious Portobello sandwich for Joe that Lyn's mushroom allergies prevented her from sharing. The floor manager appeased as with a free dessert: our choice - Lavender Ice cream - delicious! Afterwards we wandered through the dusk along the lake shore back to our room - early enough to enjoy the sunset sky's reflection on the lake, but too tired to wait for the stars to come out....