Yeah, I also thought we were lost, especially when we left heading south towards Walla Walla. The video of that kayaker is on YouTube, but I’m assuming we still can’t imbed those?
Regarding ferries, if you get a chance while you’re in Port Angeles check out the cool mural of the art-deco MV Kalakala near the intersection of Laurel and Front St.
Also known as the “Klanka-klanka” because despite numerous attempts they could never get the diesel powerplant smoothed out.
Speaking of Port Angeles, if anyone in the family is interested in the whole Twilight movie thing, Bella Italia is in the downtown area. The characters from the movies were based in Forks, WA, which is a drive west of P.A., altho there is not much to the town that was included in the movies (yeah, I had to make the drive out there in the rain for the wifey once).
Another cool walking area is Lake Crescent, west of P.A. On the back side of the lake, opposite Hwy 101 is the Spruce Railroad trail at the end of E Beach Rd, and on a clear day, if you are lucky, there are great views across the lake at the mountains. On the Hwy 101 side is also Marymere falls.
If I were driving from Pendleton to Sequim, I’d go through the Columbia River Gorge on I-84* toward Portland/ Vancouver (WA), then north on I-5, then 101 in Olympia, through Shelton and past the Hood Canal.
If you really want to drive over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge**, you could. If you do, you’d drive past my town of Port Orchard. Other than the bridge, and maybe the mothballed ships at the Navy Shipyard, there’s not much to see driving through the Kitsap Peninsula.
*: Hop across the river at Biggs Junction/ Maryhill to see the Stonehenge recreation.
**: There are two now. In that direction, you’d be going over the 1950 “Sturdy Gertie” one.
Unless you made a slight detour into Bremerton, you’d miss driving past the ships (staying on SR 3 to Hood Canal). But I really don’t think the mothballed ships have much interest. The aircraft cariers are gone, and there’s nothing really interesting there that you can see from the road.
Speaking of Hood Canal, be advised that it will be closed some weekends this summer. This is a huge deal if you are planning a weekend crossing
Before you write off Mt. Rainier, you should consider that the wildflower display in July can be absolutely spectacular. And I believe that traffic will be less of an issue if you go to Paradise, rather than Sunrise.
Not from the road, but there is the Turner Joy museum, if one is interested in that sort of thing. One of the two ships involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident which got the US (more deeply) mired in Vietnam.
Absolutely. I was responding to the mothballed ship docks. Bremerton itself is full of fun and adventure.
And I was mainly commenting on the lack of scenery on the highway. There’s plenty to do 'round here if you stop.
There is a whole lot of nothing on the western/ocean side of the Olympics. If nothing is what you want, you may find it there.
No good hotels or restaurants, just a few sleepy little towns with people who have spent too much time in the rain forest. Beautiful coasts, impressive hikes, rain, rain, moss, trees, more rain. Wet and cold. Even in July.
And they don’t call it a rain forest for nothing. The weather comes in off the Pacific ocean and due to the height of the Olympic mountains, all of the water gets dumped on the west side. The water sort of gets squeezed out by the mountains and towns in the eastern shadow, like Sequim, are fairly pleasant.
Tacoma is a great sightseeing option. Pacific Avenue has the aforementioned Museum of Glass as well as the Washington History Museum (it has a fun roller skating exhibit right now). I don’t know how old the kiddo is, but there’s also a children’s museum right there, as well. There are also a lot of cute little restaurants, including The Melting Pot, a fondue place.
This is all practically next to I-5 and very easy to access. Certainly, there will be some traffic on I-5, but overall it will be so much less stressful than Seattle. Not that I don’t love Seattle.
I’ll have to let the artist in the family decide between this and the Chihuly museum.
That is another place that is supported by the reciprocal museum membership. It is a backup location if nature really disagrees with the kid. It’s probably a 2 hour drive from the campsite, but that is plenty close if the kid can’t take another day of heat and bug bites.
Both of those are reasonable options to do instead of Seattle. I’ve never been outside of SEATAC, so all of it will be new to me, and if something turns out to be disappointing, I’ll know not to do it again.
We’re driving through Wyoming, northern Utah, and Idaho, so we might be nothinged out by then. If we were staying closer to the rain forest, I’d be pushing for it. I wonder if this drive will be more nothing than the panhandle and north Texas trips. Regardless, it will be better than the something drive from say Philadelphia to Boston.
We don’t have time on the drive-by to go all the way up to Sunrise. It would be more of driving near or through the park. It adds about an hour (excluding stops), but not additional mileage. We would probably go across 12 and then up 410 into Tacoma.
There are lots of options to get from Yakima to Sequim, and it can be done on a single charge, so it will probably come down to how we feel, and if there are any road issue on any of the routes.
That’s interesting. It would mean staying in The Dalles instead of Yakima, and adds about 70 miles to the trip, but it trades Seattle and Tacoma for a bit of Portland and Olympia. Probably a win traffic wise.
Options are not the problem, it is deciding that is difficult.
I’m imagining you stuffing a crab in that little single serve coffee pot!
A campfire crab boil would be amazing, but is much more ambitious than I’m up for. If there were other adults involved I’d be willing to try.
They have a level 2 charger, which isn’t much use unless spending the night…
The Boise plan is probably to get a hotel near the airport, which is along the freeway, and half the price of downtown. When in a new city, unless I have a good idea of a specific restaurant, I just search out a brew pub. It looks like Boise has me covered in that aspect. Tips on which places are local institutions are always appreciated.
I’ve done that trip up the west side of Hood Canal; there’s lots and lots of not much.
Don’t be confused by the name “Hood Canal”. It’s a natural feature, not man-made, but much of its length is pretty straight and uniform width.
If you’ve never been on Puget Sound, I’ll again recommend trying to get on a ferry some point during your trip. If you leave from Seattle you’ll get the best views of the city possible. And being out on the water is something I never tire of.
I’ve done it, too, and I thought it was lovely. Not the greatest, but much better than 16 and 3 through Kitsap, which is mostly like driving through the Death Star trench, but with trees for walls.
Having to / getting to ride the ferries is one of the cool things about living on my side of Puget Sound. I would recommend the Seattle-Bremerton route for visitors because it lasts longer and you go through Rich Passage.
As an Olympia resident, I don’t really know that there’s much here that would be of interest to a tourist - for being a state capital, it’s a pretty sleepy town overall. You can take a guided tour of the Capitol building, but I’ve never done it so I don’t know whether it’s worth the time. If you want to, you can swing by Music 6000 and look at the handwritten receipts from when they sold Nirvana their instruments in 1989. We’ve got a relatively famous drive-up burger restaurant that tops its sandwiches with a housemade mustard tartar sauce called “goop”. That’s about it, really.
I haven’t spent much time in Portland, but there’s a pretty large independent bookstore downtown that has a collection of rare and antique books you can peruse, and I can point you in the direction of a pretty cool video arcade. Plus you can see this vintage sign from a long-defunct restaurant in Chinatown;
Powell’s may well be the best bookstore in the world.
Perhaps I should qualify that a bit, since I haven’t been there in about 15 years, but it used to be the Disneyland of literature.
Hm, not really a bar-going type myself, all the places like that, that I could tell you about, are bars downtown in the middle of the much maligned one-way-grid. Humpin Hannahs, The Ha’Penny etc. oh! There is The Gallo Giro(spelling is uncertain) downtown, a mexican restaurant started by a couple of brothers who immigrated here from Mexico.
If staying at one of the airport hotels you immediate choices are the TA, dennys, or whatever is down Vista Avenue (there’s a couple pizza places, maybe a couple others that aren’t coming to mind)
Oh, also, if you like Barbecue, Kuna (again) has a Barbecue place that smells pretty damn good when I walk by. Keep meaning to take the time to try it…
They boil it for you right off the boat.