Friday 13th March

Woke up to another apparently uncharacteristically gorgeous day in Seattle, got ourselves showered, packed and the car loaded and then headed down to Pike Place Market for the last time. A hearty breakfast at the Athenian, some fresh fruit from the market and doughnuts from Top Pot for the journey and we hit the road! We headed North on a short journey to get the ferry from Edmonds over to Kingston, half an hour on the ocean to get us across to the Olympic Peninsula. Although we loved Seattle, it felt great to be leaving the city and moving into the countryside, standing on the deck of the ferry under blue sky above blue water, with mountains all around. Then the real driving started on Highway 101, heading around Olympic National Park. We stopped in a place called Port Angeles for coffee, Greg picked up some hiking boots and I had my first go at using flags to cross a main road! We turned south off the road from Port Angeles to drive up to Hurricane Ridge, we had heard that it was a fantastic ride through the mountains. But we got to an unmanned checkpoint with a sign that said you could only proceed if you had chains for your tyres, for driving on snow. We debated going ahead anyway but decided that it might be a little foolhardy, and it was starting to get late anyway. So we got back on the 101 heading west and south to the place we had booked to stay for the night.
And what a place! It was called the Hoh Humm Ranch, it was in the middle of nowhere and it was wonderful. (Check out the website - http://www.olypen.com/hohhumm/) A working ranch with sheep, cattle and llamas, and a lovely elderly couple called Bob and Mary running the place. It was an incredible contrast to being in the city the night before, the views were fantastic and it was so serene. We had a walk around the ranch grounds before heading back north 20 miles to the town of Forks, where we went to The In Place for food, a typical American diner. We had clam strips and crab and shrimp sandwiches with fries, rounded off with Bumbleberry pie dessert - rhubarb, blackberry, blueberry and apple, lovely stuff!