2020 was going to be the year my wife and I would evaluate and explore all those one-euro house deals in Italy. We wanted to see if these deals really were doable, considering how dilapidated the properties were. But along came the pandemic, and our plans, like everyone else’s, suddenly got put on hold indefinitely.
By August we were going a little stir-crazy so we decided to do a road trip. Our plan was to drive through Canada and into Alaska where we would visit with family and explore this huge, vast, untamed state.
We tried to cross into Canada from the border control at Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho. Even though the Canadian Government websites indicated that US citizens could travel through Canada to Alaska, the border agents said Canada changed its policy and weren’t allowing any US citizens into the country unless their travel plans were deemed ‘essential travel’. Visiting family didn’t even come close to making the cut. Man, 2020 was going nowhere fast.
Washington State Has it All
We were so disappointed I was actually ready to call it quits and head back home. Thankfully, Sudy was undeterred and convinced me that we should modify our itinerary and visit the Washington and Oregon coasts. So, we headed Southwest, passing Coulee Dam and the huge Banks Lake, and on down to our first stop – Soap Lake Washington.
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Soap Lake is a strange little town. It is situated right next to a really pretty lake, and has a wonderfully walkable downtown, with many local restaurants and shops. Just outside of town, there are cozy little RV parks right by the lake, and some well run, family oriented motels. It was so charming and picturesque, we thought it must have a vibrant tourism industry. But after we spent some time driving around and exploring the downtown area, we noticed that a lot of buildings were boarded up. We couldn’t understand why the town seemed to be struggling. Maybe someday it will get discovered. We hope so! Anyway, we stayed at a nice little motel called The Masters Inn and really enjoyed our visit.
The next day, we drove out of Soap Lake heading west. After an easy half day drive, we made it to our next planned stop, an amazing little Bavarian themed town called Leavenworth.
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This town goes all-in with their German theme and it really works! We felt like we were in a little German town. It’s not just one or two buildings, it’s a whole downtown area comprising many blocks. Every building has that distinctive German style architecture, and everywhere there are German shops and restaurants serving beer, pretzels and schnitzel! Because of the Covid restrictions on inside dining, the streets were lined with many dozens of outside tables with seating for the local restaurants. Lots of people were out on the streets, shopping, eating, and enjoying the fun German beerhall music oozing from a few German-style beer halls.
The Big Beaches of North Bay
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After leaving Leavenworth, we drove to Westport, our first Washington beach town. It makes for an easy starting point for some of the other small coastal towns further North. These include Moclips, Copalis Beach, Ocean City, Ocean Shores, and Tokeland. The beaches all along this coast are huge! They are well over 200 feet wide, and extend uninterrupted for many miles North and South. And in the off-season, you can actually drive your car on these beaches.
The weather was cloudy, foggy, and chilly. So foggy in fact that we often couldn’t really see much of the ocean. But it was still great to experience these endless beaches. We found the towns here to be nothing that special, small, quiet, a bit neglected, just not what we expected at all. The beaches were definitely the attraction and we spent most of our time walking along these beaches, just savoring the ocean breeze and sounds of waves crashing on the beach. The water was freezing, so neither of us were the least bit tempted to swim, but some people did!
After checking out the towns and beaches in the North and South Bay area of Washington, we headed south to check out the Long Beach peninsula in the Willapa Bay area of Washington. On the way, we chanced upon the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge.
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The Willapa National Wildlife Refuge has an amazing hike through a large part of the refuge. We didn’t see any animals, but we sure got a taste of what the Washington rainforests are all about. This turned out to be a really great introduction to the many hikes we would eventually enjoy in Washington. This was such a cool place we didn’t want to leave. But we wanted to make Long Beach before nightfall, so off we went to the best part of the Washington coast, Long Beach!
The Bigger Beaches of Long Beach
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We thought the North Bay beaches were huge, but the beaches of Long Beach go even further. These amazing beaches are the main attraction of this area, but there are also a great assortment of seafood restaurants, interesting places to stay, easy access to the huge beaches, and plenty of shops. Long Beach is a busy, fun and vibrant little town, and we enjoyed it a lot. This town and the other couple towns further up including Klipsan Beach, Ocean Park, and Oysterville, all were charming, and were very close to the beach.
South of Long Beach is Cape Disappointment and it is a must visit State Park. Lot’s of great rain forest hikes, two lighthouses, beaches with hardly anyone there, and they even have a fairly extensive bike path so you could bike it without the hassle of dealing with any traffic, not that there was much anyway.
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We discovered a small shop selling smoked fish and canned oysters from Ekone Oyster Company of Willapa Bay. They were so good, oysters soon became our main lunch staple, along with a little bread, cheese, wine, and the beach! We did these kinds of meals a lot.
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Cape Disappointment is at the north side of where the Columbia River enters the Pacific. It’s apparently a great area for fishing, especially as you can walk out about a quarter mile on a huge jetty and fish much deeper waters than you could from shore. It was a blast to go out to the end of the jetty and watch seals frolicking in the water, and hear the ocean waves crashing against the huge car sized stones used to build the jetty.
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Spent the night at a cute little motel in Long Beach called The Mermaid.
Since it was so foggy, we decided to head inland and check out more rain forests before continuing on to the Oregon coast. So we set our sights on the Quinault Lake area in the Olympic National Forest.
Quinault Lake: Valley of the Rainforest Giants
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Quinault Lake is a must stop for rain forest hikes. It is known as the ‘Valley of the Rainforest Giants’ and this name is quite appropriate. There were big trees everywhere, set amidst a jungle of green tapestry and lush overgrowth. Quinault Lake sits between Olympic National Park to the North, and Olympic National Forest to the South, and it is a gem! It might be hard to find accommodations as there isn’t much of a town. But being off-season, we found a really nice motel called Quinault River Inn motel, and we decided to stay a couple days here.
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You can drive around Quinault Lake, and stop at many great places to camp, hike, have a picnic, or just relax and enjoy the lake. We chose to do some of the hikes and we were blown away by these forests. They were so lush, with dense foliage, decay and regrowth everywhere.
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Our first hike was the Maple Glade Rainforest hike. The hike is through a spectacular rainforest area, and has information along the way describing the trees, plants, and animal life in this part of the forest. The trail eventually leads to an old homestead called the Kestner Homestead, built in 1891. This homestead still has their original buildings and barns, old trucks, fences, everything almost untouched since it was abandoned.
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Another fantastic hike we enjoyed was the Quinault Rainforest Nature Loop. It takes you deep into the rainforest, filled with lush foliage, dead and decaying trees, small rivers with nicely built foot bridges over them, and a canopy so dense you hardly see any sunlight reaching the forest floor.
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Near this hike there’s a small trail to the largest Sitka Spruce tree in the world. It is almost 200 feet high and has a diameter of 18 feet! And it’s 1,000 years old! Unreal. And this was just one of hundreds of huge trees we passed in our hikes in these forests.
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These rainforests are just other-worldy, and almost magical. The trees are always around you in one form or another, either towering 150+ feet above your head, with lower branches full of green, stringy fungus, or in various states of decay, either fallen over or still standing. The air is thick with a heady mix of earthiness, decay, wood and humidity. The ground is always damp, and there is a steady drip of water droplets from the myriad leaves, branches, and fungus comprising the dense forest canopy above you. Even when there is sun, there is little light getting down to the forest floor. There is an eery quiet too, as sound is muffled by so much dense foliage, and few birds seem to inhabit these forests. Washington rainforests are truly a gem of the US park service and should be visited by everyone at least once.
Surprising Beauty of Port Angeles Area
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The drive on highway 101 from Quinault Lake to Port Angeles goes through some more amazing forests and potential hikes. It also goes by a huge and very beautiful lake called Lake Crescent. We kept pulling over for the views of the lake and the forests and mountains surrounding it.
The more we explored Port Angeles, the more we liked it. A large outdoor stairway connects the upper town area, where we stayed, to the lower wharf area where many of the restaurants and bars are located. The downtown area near the wharf is actually quite nice. Even though the ferries were temporarily closed down, the wharf area was still a pleasant area to walk and explore. There were many shops and restaurants in various stages of reopening. And many wonderful older buildings had huge murals depicting various scenes in and around Port Angeles. We both felt this would be a fun town to revisit when things are back to normal.
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The first trail we hiked near Port Angeles was the Discovery Trail. This is a 150 mile bike trail that connects Port Angeles with La Push on the Northwest coast! The part we were on was even paved. How cool is this?
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Our second day here we drove the road along the north shore from Port Angeles to Neah Bay. Beautiful coast, very low key, not many towns at all, and the ones we encountered were quite small and mostly overrun with RVs. Since Neah Bay itself was closed off to visitors due to the pandemic, we drove back and did a nice hike near Lake Cresent called Merrymare Falls. This is an amazing Rainforest forest trail and ends in the beautiful Merrymare Falls.
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Mount Rainier: The Tallest Mountain in Washington
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Mount Rainier was one of the most enjoyable and scenic national parks we’ve ever been to! We got a cabin for 3 nights at a place called Gateway Inn, right near the West entrance. The plan was to do a lot of hiking, but the weather was not cooperating. It was foggy and rainy the entire 3 days. We still did some soggy hikes, one was to Comet Falls, one of the largest I’ve ever seen. But due to the weather, we could not even see Mt. Rainier!
Since the weather was supposed to improve, and since we loved the rain forest hikes so much, we decided to extend our stay, only this time we got a much better cabin near a place called Base Camp. It’s only a few miles from the entrance, in a town called Ashford. There is a really cool restaurant called the Basecamp Bar and Grill, and our cabin nearby was perfect.
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The next day it was sunny! And when we did the drive again into the national park that had been rainy and foggy for so many prior days, what a magnificent shock to see Mt. Rainier towering above all the other mountains in the heart of the national park. With the upper third of the mountain covered in recent snows and year round glaciers, it was quite a sight to behold.
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For our hike this day, we chose the Skyline Trail from Paradise Village. If you could only do one hike, this would be it. It takes you close to Mt. Rainier with spectacular views of both Mount Rainier and the surrounding mountains and forests. We could even see Mount St. Helens in the distance. It’s another impressive extinct volcano that towers over every other mountain around it.
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One of my favorite hikes was called the Twin Firs Loop Trial. It’s only a half mile loop, but it meanders within some amazing fir trees easily over 150 feet high, and the rain forest canopy and lush foliage just had me mesmerized. I started every day with this hike as it was close to the entrance and didn’t take a lot of time. What a great way to start the day!
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We had enjoyed Long Beach so much, we went back there as a starting point for Oregon. We had discovered some awesome cabins (Klipsan Beach Cottages) near the shore from our first visit, but at that time, they were booked solid. This time out, we were able to book one of them for a few days. A private path goes out from the cottage to Long Beach!
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The Untamed Oregon Coast
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Astoria, Seaside Beach, Cannon Beach
From Long Beach, we headed south toward Oregon, crossing the Columbia River into Astoria. Although Astoria looked interesting to us, we had planned to get to Seaside Beach for the night, about 20 miles further south.
Seaside is a very busy, highly trafficked town, the main road sort of bisects the town’s collection of small shopping centers and businesses. But the town is really not very interesting. It was totally overrun with tourists seeking cheaper accommodations than the much more interesting and quaint Cannon Beach, which is another beach town just a little further south.
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Cannon Beach is a really cute little beach town. Lots of small shops and restaurants in a walkable downtown setting of maybe 4 or 5 blocks. The buildings all have a really nice architecture and the beach, including the famous Haystack Rock, is just steps away. Of course, being one of the nicest Oregon beach towns, it’s quite pricey! When we got there it was Friday afternoon and we couldn’t find any reasonable rooms, so we drove back up to Astoria to get a hotel room for the night.
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We found a great room at the Holiday Inn Express, with a remarkable view of the Astoria-Megler Bridge. This is a huge suspension bridge that we had driven over earlier that day when we crossed the mouth of the Columbia River, connecting Oregon and Washington. Astoria is actually very charming and has a lot of character. The only issue is that it has a very busy roadway going right through the heart of the town. But if you go off a couple blocks, it is much more peaceful and quiet, with lots of great restaurants and shops.
Manzanita
Heading back south on highway 101 we stopped and enjoyed a great hike to the top of Neahkahnie Mountain. This is a beautiful and lush rain forest environment, and as you keep hiking up, the views of the rocky Oregon Coast just get better and better.
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After our hike, we drove on to a town called Manzanita. This is another really quaint little coastal town. There are a few restaurants, but mostly just nice homes set against a picturesque Oregon coast. Not many hotels here and nothing was available so we just drove around and eventually found a small, family run motel (The Bunk House) with a lot of character a little further down the road. We liked the motel so much we extended our stay to two nights.
Neskawin
After Manzanita, we continued south on highway 101, to a small town called Neskawin. For some reason, we just felt like driving around the small neighborhood near the beach, just thinking how nice it must be to live here. It is a very small town of only a few hundred people, and mostly just single family homes, with a golf course on one side and the beach on the other. There’s a small store, post office, restaurant and a condo complex at one end, and that’s about it for the town.
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It’s a really cute little community along a beautiful beach and hardly anyone on the beach. As we drove around, we came across a cozy little cottage that had a for rent sign in front and when we called, they said it was available, so we took it! Awesome place, and only a couple minutes to the beach. It’s managed by Grey Vacation Rental, that has an office in Neskawin (just down the road and only a 1 block town).
Newport
The next town we visited was Newport. Got a nice room at a hotel called The Whaler Inn, with a balcony overlooking the ocean and beach! The town of Newport is really interesting. It’s definitely a fishing village and there is fresh seafood all along the town walkway. There is a small but busy port, with lots of fishing vessels of all types coming and going. But the best part of Newport was a sea lion population hanging out on floating platforms in the middle of the port. We watched them for a long time as they made quite a spectacle fighting and maneuvering for sleeping space.
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Florence
Fifty miles south of Newport is Florence, another coastal gem. It’s a small town of 9,000, with just a few blocks for a downtown area, but lots of character and very walkable. There’s a small harbor with some fishing boats and some boats that look like people are just living in their boat! The Siuslaw river runs by the town and its very picturesque. We stayed at a Best Western that had balconies overlooking the river and downtown Florence across the way.
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Near Florence, just north of Heceta Head State Park, is a cool trail called ‘The Hobbit Trail’ that takes you to Hobbit Beach. Who could pass up a trail with a name like that? It’s really nice and winds through some wonderful lichen/moss filled woods. At the end, you go through a ‘tunnel’ of overgrowth, and end up at Hobbit Beach, a typical Oregon beach with large rock outcroppings, drift wood, shells, and very active waves crashing in on the beach.
South of Florence is a town called Gold Beach. The town isn’t very remarkable, but the beach areas have these huge dunes that are set back a hundred feet or so from the water. It makes for an interesting coastal environment.
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The only thing worth checking out here is the Cape Sebastion Trail, which was one of our favorite trails. It first leads you through the thick Oregon rain forest environment, slowly winding up to the top of a ridge with spectacular views of the rugged Oregon coast. Then it winds down into an incredible coastline set with large rock outcroppings and turbulent waves crashing all around the rocks. We spent most of the day on this hike and the beach.
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After we left the Oregon coast, we meandered a little in Nevada, Utah, and also stayed a few days in Yosemite. A great road trip covering more than 7,000 miles! Would we do it again? Absolutely!
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