Roadtrip #6: Victoria, BC and the Pacific Coast

Across the Evergreen state we go.

We said our goodbyes to the family and exited Spokane, WA shortly before 8:30am. We transitioned from I-90 to US Route 2, then took a series of routes: Hwy 174 featuring Coulee and Chief Joseph dams, US Route 97/Hwy 17/Hwy 153 featuring miles of apple tree farms (even stopped at a fruit stand to pick up some delicious stuff) and then finally boarded Hwy 20 that carried us to our primary destination of the day, North Cascades National Park.

This park was unique in that there was no formal entry fee, and there are actually towns within the borders. Traveling east to west, we hit the main features long before the visitor center. Unfortunately the clouds decided to make an appearance and hid the tallest of the cascade peaks. But we still got to see many of the geological features of valleys, gorges, waterfalls, and lakes. We continued west until we reached the town of Mt. Vernon.

Tomorrow begins our trek to our Canadian friends up north, although we won't be advancing any farther in latitude, since Victoria is actually below the Washington state border with Canada. We have to be up at 5:45am in order to get ready and make the ferry in Anacortes, so that means I'm going to bed... now. Good night!

It was still dark when we all woke up and packed our bags to leave. The WS-DOT ferry departure time was 8:25am and since this was our first experience with such vehicle transportation we wanted to be sure we were on the right track. We took Hwy 20 all the way past Anacortes, WA and reached the terminal around 7:15am.

We loaded onto the 3-level ferry about an hour later, and ascended to the 3rd level where all the other passengers hung out. The ferry made a pit stop at Friday Harbor on the San Juan Islands. Ten minutes later it was headed out again, crossing the international border and finally coming to rest in Sydney, BC, Canada. The overall journey took a little less than 3 hours.

We weren't quite done yet. We used Canada Hwy 17 southward to finish up the route into destination #1: Victoria. Our hotel was 1 block away from the parliament (capitol) and harbor. Perfect location if you ask me.

After settling in, we decided to walk up and down a few blocks of downtown to see what was up. It's also rather fun people-watching and filtering out the tourists from the locals. Good stuff, eh?

We're here for a few days, and it sounds like rain might invade on Sunday, so we're planning outdoor activities Saturday and indoor activities Sunday. Let's hope it works out.

Time to put our feet to the test.

Minimal driving today. We headed north on the Canadian highways to the prime obligatory tourist trap destination, the Butchard Gardens in Brentwood Bay, BC. It is a little on the expensive side ($29.00 CAD per adult, but that's before 12% tax, and no senior discounts or coupons) but when you start walking through the different areas of the garden, you can see why. You'll be hard-pressed to find one dead or sick plant throughout the entire 55 acres. Various displays from the Sunken to the Japanese to the Italian gardens are all overwhelming sights to take in. A leisurely stroll will last you about 2 hours. There's also options for boat tours, which we declined.

We picked up a few souvenirs and headed back down to Victoria. After a quick snack and nap, we decided to leave the minivan in the garage and walked over to the south end of the island, for a jaunt around Beacon Hill park. We didn't quite make it to the overlook but did catch a lot of the ponds and fountains, flora, ducks, peacocks in trees, and overall serenity (aside from the kids in the playground and putting green).

That's all our feet could take. We'll be keeping it simple since the rain is supposed to move in soon. We're half-way through the show!

Our second full day in Victoria started with a short walk 2 blocks west to the Royal BC Museum and 6-story IMAX theater. I figured it would probably get busy during the day so we bought tickets the moment they opened the doors at 9:45am. Thanks to a 20% coupon I found online, we all bought combo passes to both an IMAX showing and the 2 floors of the museum. Hardly anyone was there to start. The educational IMAX film "Sea Rex" was pretty good, although a little cheezy explaining the different periods of the Mesozoic. Glad we got this 10:00am showing out of the way, as when we exited the theater the ticket line was extremely long!

Next was the upper 2 floors showcasing the "Natural History" and "First Peoples" gallery. They also temporarily set up a feature for the famous Victorian artist Emily Carr. All the exhibits were excellent. You can easily spend hours in there if those types of things interest you.

I don't think our feet are adjusting much to all this walking we're still doing, so we headed back to the hotel and napped again, which is good timing because we got our first big rain of the trip, but the storm passed quickly and it cleared up just hours later. The mom and I used this window to head out for another short walk, picking up the last round of souvenirs and scoping out a place for dinner. Luckily parking is free on Sunday so we drove close to our last hurrah and ate dinner at the Sticky Wicket pub.

Our ferry back to the states leaves at 10:30am, so we have organizing to do in the morning. Thanks Canada, it's been fun.

It looks like the weather finally stopped cooperating with us. It was pouring as we left our hotel and drove the entire 2 blocks to the Victoria Terminal at 9:00am, a full 90 minutes before our ferry was to depart. That's just enough time to go through the entire customs process on the Canada side. Once boarded, we crossed the Juan de Fuca Strait to Port Angeles, WA, USA and ended our reign in Canada for the trip.

After going through the 2nd round of customs on the US side, it was only 3 miles to the visitor center of our primary feature of the day, Olympic National Park. This place was HUGE, and no way could you see it all in one day, much less in the relentless storm that was blowing through. I almost decided just to pass it over on the east side and forgo the park, but the ranger convinced us that there may be some golden nuggets yet to salvage for the day.

Over the north and down the westward side on US 101 we flew, following the endless sight of dark grey skies and fog-covered hillsides. After miles of forest we couldn't believe when we reached the west coast that there was actually an ocean out here. Our first stop was Ruby Beach, and the rain let up just enough for us to walk the trail all the way down to the sand and driftwood. The rocks jutting out from the sea made for some great pictures. Just as we were finishing, the rainstorm began its second wind and started drenching us. We were soaked to the skin by the time we got back to the car.

We then decided to hit one more area, the north shore of the Quinault Rain Forest. With the continued downpour there wasn't much to see, so after a few pics here and there we turned back and headed out and away from the park, using the rest of the 101, then US 12, Hwy 8, and finally good 'ol I-5 to get us to the State Capitol in Olympia, WA by 7:00pm, with enough daylight left for twilight photos. Another 30 minutes farther west got us to our end destination of Tacoma, WA.

If the clouds get out of here, then we'll be able to enjoy Rainier and St. Helens on the way down to the Oregon border. We will make the proposed route, rain or shine.

It has stopped raining for the most part, but the trademark clouds of the NorthWest still persisted. We left our hotel in Tacoma and used Hwy 7 to get to our first stop of the day, Mt. Rainier National Park...

...except for one thing. The highway was completely closed off with construction due to recent washouts (and will continue to be for the next 2 years) and the nearest detour was 100 miles around the park.

Umm, yeah no. Forget that. We wouldn't have made our end destination before sunset, so we decided to forfeit Rainier completely. The low-ceiling clouds were still hanging around so it's not like we would have seen much of the main feature anyway. I had checked for closed roads earlier online, but they only mentioned the east side of the park, which didn't affect us. But they didn't mention Hwy 7 at all. I was peeved, not that I was missing a National Park, but because we actually had to turn around and go back (making us lose a good chunk of time).

OK, so now we've detoured west to I-5 south and on to our 2nd planned stop, Mt. Saint Helens National Volcanic Monument. We turned off to Hwy 504 and headed the 40 miles due east to the end of the road. As we neared the terminus, we could see viewpoints of the adjacent valley below, with the lava flow from the 1980 blast still prevalent on the floor, with the snow-melt river carving through it.

The Johnston Ridge Observatory and Visitor Center greeted us at the end of Hwy 504, so we spent the next hour or so viewing the exhibits and catching their 16-minute film inside their huge movie theater room. The star of the show unfortunately stayed veiled in mists of gray, so we could only see a few glaciers sticking out from underneath the cloud cover. Oh well, them's the breaks.

Leaving and getting back to I-5, we exited a few minutes later to Hwy 432/433 and used the Lewis and Clark Bridge to cross over into Oregon. From there the familiar State Route 30 was used to drive westward into the famous town of Astoria.

There was still sunlight left so we used this to our advantage and ascended the hills and up to the Astoria Column. Here we took in astounding views of the harbor town, the surrounding communities, the Columbia River, the hills of Washington State, and of course the Pacific Ocean. It was even better when Dad and I ascended the 164 steps of the column to gain an extra 125 feet in elevation. That made for some great shots indeed. We headed back down and found our choice of dining, Stephanie's Cabin restaurant. Excellent food there and the waitress was super nice and gave us some tips for the next day.

Dad wants to see some Lewis and Clark stuff while we're here so we take some of the morning to do that, then it's off to see as many lighthouses as the day will allow. We'll see how far south we can wander... it's spontaneous lodging from here on out!

We forgot that it's illegal to pump your own gas in Oregon [and New Jersey]. They should tell the other 48 states that self-serve is "dangerous" and should be outlawed. Way to go, Oregon. Way to go.

Anyway, the first part of our day was dedicated to stepping into the shoes of Lewis and Clark.

First thing's first... we headed over the Astoria bridge to Washington state, because come on, you can't just come around to Astoria and not cross that thing at least once. We used the endpoint of Lewis and Clark's Dismal Nitch to loop around and cross it again back into Oregon.

With that out of the way, we went straight for Fort Clatsop at the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park. Dad's read a lot of books pertaining to this era so he enjoyed seeing the fort replica and the surrounding areas. After the 30-minute movie, we turned southward on to the 101, and began our long trek down the famous rugged coast of Oregon.

Before long, the first lighthouse of the day for us was Cape Meares off of Hwy 131. It wasn't a big lighthouse, and it took a bit of walking to get to it, but there was a gift shop inside and volunteers to show you a video and give a little information. (The stairs to the top were still closed because of vandalism last year.)

I thought it would be wise to continue using Hwy 131 along the coast and get dumped back on to Mr. 101. "Oh no, that's too easy" says the construction man. They closed the road off right after passing the town of Oceanside, giving us no choice but to turn around and go back the way we came, making us waste 30 minutes. I would detail my reaction but this thread would quickly become R-rated. So let's just skip onward, shall we?

We've decided (well I already decided, and the parents agree) that the Oregon coastline gets the blue ribbon. We found several places (whether it be a secluded overlook or a town viewpoint) to take in the view, the ocean scent, and the crashing waves. Can't get enough of it!

Anyway, the next lighthouse: it's the biggie... Yaquina Head, which is inside the Yaquina Outstanding Natural Park. Luckily it was national-based, which means Dad's senior park pass was good for free admission. (Sweet!) Their visitor center was huge with exhibits and interpretation areas, but unfortunately we got there too late to be able to go up into the lighthouse itself (Curse the road closure!)

On southward... I saw the sun quickly setting so I dashed as fast as the speed limits would allow in order to get the third and final lighthouse of the day, the Umpqua Lighthouse. I had 6 minutes until the sun would start setting so I grabbed my appropriate lenses and shot for about 10 minutes from one of the viewpoints.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, that was our cue to finish up and get to Coos Bay. After a pizza dinner, we are preparing to enter back into our home state tomorrow. I'm glad I have that extra cushion day because I don't know what I was thinking for these last few legs (shhh, not a word from any of you).

As lovely as our Coos Bay hotel room turned out, we still had to leave pretty early in order to catch everything on our extremely full plate.

There were still 2 more lighthouses on the Oregon shore to see. The first was Cape Blanco lighthouse, although our lovely GPS had us turn down the wrong road to a dead-end and waste another 15 minutes. I'm really starting to hate those things. We did find it, but we only stopped for a few minutes to take pictures and then get out. The 2nd and final lighthouse was Pelican Bay Lighthouse, found in the port harbor of Brookings. It's actually part of a private residence and built in 1999. We took pictures of it on the cliff from below after mom found her "Oregon Coast" t-shirt she absolutely had to have. (Spectacular views of the coastline will do that to you. Beware!)

A few miles later, we crossed back into our home state of California, but since we live on the southern end, there's still a long way to go. The primary item of the day started in Crescent City, CA, where we stopped on 2nd street at the Information Center for the Redwood National and State Parks. Since we didn't arrive until 1:00pm we had to make haste with our viapoints.

The first part was the north end of the Redwoods, AKA Jebediah Smith State Park. We took the dirt road 10 miles through, to the Stout Grove loop trail. The folks had never seen these tall trees before, and of course were in awe. This is the kind of stuff you just can't capture on camera. Even with a 17mm wide angle lens you can't get the entire 200-300 feet of enormosity. Even the scale is hard to decipher unless you place someone at the trunk.

After an hour of walking around the groves, we finished up the rest of the dirt road to route 199, looping back through to 101 and Crescent City again. We continued on to the next part, which is not actually part of the park, the Trees of Mystery. This is a fun little attraction that feature unique types of the redwoods that have grown a little funky over the years. After paying the $14 (or $11 senior) entry fee, we headed up the marked path to see the types of trees featured on Ripley's Believe it or Not show, then reached the famous Sky Train gondola ride, which takes you along the high tops of the Redwoods, a mile up the mountain to a viewpoint where you can see both the ocean on one side and the forest mountain ranges on the other.

My folks' walking abilities were spent at this point, so upon taking the gondola back down the hill, we had a shuttle waiting for us to come take us back to the museum/gift shop. I picked up a bunch of souvenirs here, and then off again we headed south.

The last stop was extremely brief, the "Big Tree" off of the Newton B. Drury Scenic drive off the main Hwy 101. I had visited this tree in 2005 during Roadtrip #1, and wanted to return with the better camera for more pictures. We only stayed 5 minutes, but that was enough for a few shots. We continued south and almost made it out of the area when we found some elk grazing... a male bull watching over his harem of about 20 cows feeding in the grasslands. Luckily I have a 300mm to capture the details. I'm just glad we finally found some elk after all the signs we've come across.

Done and done. We continued a little bit farther to the town of Eureka, CA. There's not much left on the to-do list, so we'll be wrapping it up soon.

Hey Joey, glad you got a chance to drive through my neck of the woods! Now you see why growing up in Crescent City was such a horrible experience with all those ugly redwoods and the boring ocean nearby. ;)

I'm glad you got to check out Stout Grove. It's one of the places that I sometimes visit again when visiting my parents there. Sounds like you guys were looking for lighthouses to visit. I hope you got a chance to check out the 2 lighthouses there in Crescent City.

Well, have a safe trip back to southern cal. See you in a few days.

Joey,

Even though this is your 6th road trip and I ought to be used to the pace of your road trips, I still marvel that you do so much in such a short period of time. Looking forward to seeing your photos.

Mark